50 Apocalyptic Visions from Pop Culture That You Should Know About...Before It's Too Late

I haven't had time to start a novel lately, so I chose this book to cover because a) it's short, and b) I don't watch disaster-porn movies, so I figured this would be fast way to catch up with what's out there.

First, this isn't just about movies; the title appropriately labels them as "visions" because it includes a range of movies, plays, TV shows, songs, and even paintings. But other than that I was on target, because this book is mainly about summaries that catch you on what you were missing (up until 2012, anyway). There is boxed information about "could this happen for real" that give the book a thin veneer of education, but each box contains just a short, not very informative paragraph.

The packaging is attractive enough, but you can get better summaries on Wikipedia these days. On the plus side, browsing the book reveals things you might not have known about otherwise (the book claims "99 Red Balloons" was a hit song in the 1980s, but I never heard it), and teens might be exposed to classics like the movie Dr. Strangelove, or the song "Eve of Destruction."