Ol' Backwoods just finished a book that I have been avoiding since my teen years, a book, I supposed, so utterly despondent in its outlook, so stolid in its prediction of failure of civilization, that it would cast its pall of darkness over me, without recovery. But I was wrong. Earth Abides (Amazon) Earth Abides by George R. Stewart is one of the most important, one of the more comforting, and one of the more hopeful books I have ever read. Surprised? Yeah, so am I. What could an atheist Berkeley professor write that should impress a backwoods Christian engineer...