The aftermath

IN TOO MANY CORNERS OF THE WORLD, THE SUM-mer skies now arrive with a sepia haze, telltale smoke that signals both burning forests and systems under strain. First responders rush into wildfires knowin

Los Angeles offers Hollywood glamour and year-round sunshine — but it’s the strange history and hidden quirks that keep Kevin EG Perry hooked

Lizzie Wade Apocalypse How catastrophe transformed our world and can forge new futures 320pp. William Collins. £20. Luke Kemp Goliath’s Curse The history and future of societal collapse 592pp. Viking.

On the epic Californian adventure of her dreams, the writer Jill Dawson discovers a renewed sense of vitality and peace, surrounded by the Golden State’s breathtaking natural beauty

It sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories or a disaster movie: a series of volcanic eruptions kicks off a deadly pandemic. But new research suggests that such an event may indeed have happened.

California is known as the Golden State, not for its glitter and glamour, but for the vast stretches of sun-burnt grassland that defines its landscape. In Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s