LETTERS FROM ATLANTIS

LETTERS FROM ATLANTIS takes on with rigor and curiosity something that is on the backs—and increasingly on the fronts—of all our minds: how the water will come. While Miami is cast as the central “character” in the proposal, the book will be VERY wide ranging and explores in depth low level places all over the world. London, The Netherlands, the Maldives, Philippines, Jakarta, Bangladesh, Greenland and many others.

THE WORLD WITHOUT US is an obvious comp title in that LETTERS FROM ATLANTIS is basically taking the most "pop" chapters (i.e. the ones that got the most coverage) from Weisman's book and developing them both specifically and broadly around the issues—geographic, engineering, climate forecasting—preceding and following our cities’ immersion in water. The pages are arresting because of the ticking clock, and because ultimately they’re about people and our grand infrastructure and achievements, and what will happen to them. You can't stop thinking about it, and it's scary because in many places on the planet, it's really happening now.

Jeff Goodell has been a contributing editor at Rolling Stone for almost 20 years. His piece from last year, “Goodbye, Miami,” was liked by over 23k on Facebook (you’ll also notice how climate change deniers comment-bombed the article).We think Jeff is on to something vital here—and that he has a way in, finally, to a tough subject that deserves this spotlight now. Just today among the NYT’s most emailed, this devastating news: http://nyti.ms/1jaFVCI (The depletion of large parts of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is almost certainly unstoppable, with global warming accelerating the disintegration, two groups of scientists reported last week.) And last month, this piece in the Magazine about how the Dutch are welcoming water in: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/magazine/how-to-think-like-the-dutch-in-a-post-sandy-world.html Jeff has written three good, small books, but this is, his “one.” He’s swinging for the fences and our goal is to have a book that is taken seriously while it is at the same time page-turning and discussable.