Currently Reading: The World Without Us

" 'If you want to destroy a barn,' a farmer once told me,
'cut an eighteen-inch-square hole in the roof.
Then stand back."
- architect Chris Riddle
Amherst, Massachusetts

I was reading some of the online responses to "Life After People" a few weeks ago, and I noticed that a lot of people (including one of the rare commenters I get here) referred to a book called The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. Intrigued, I checked it out of the local library and have finally started reading it. It seems pretty well-researched, and so far is at least as interesting to me as was the program.

Fair warning: chapter two, "Unbuilding Our Home," can cause nightmares for new homeowners (like me). The quote above, which introduces that chapter, should give you an idea of the horrors that await. An excerpt from the text:

"No matter how hermetically you've sealed your temperature-tuned interior from the weather, invisible spores penetrate anyway, exploding in sudden outbursts of mold - awful when you see it, worse when you don't, because it's hidden behind a painted wall, munching paper sandwiches of gypsum board, rotting studs and floor joists. Or you've been colonized by termites, carpenter ants, roaches, hornets or even small mammals."

Yikes.