I just finished listening to an audiobook version of The World Without Us. Sometimes it was exhilarating, more often so depressing that I finished my commute in the mood to just kill myself and mark on my headstone, “Let the healing begin!” If you find visions of apocalypse compelling, and love your dreams laced with ecodeath and dystopia, you love this book. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s full of paleoarchaeology, looking at the world before us as well as the world after us, and quite a bit of science fictional thought experimentation. If you can get past the chapter on plastic, there is the occasional spark of hope–or anyway, of color.