The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

The world ends in a wimper and not with a bang--that is the truism that is channeled in this first effort.  The quasi-scientific basis for the novel is that the geomagnetic field of the earth is ever changing.  As the novel opens, it is changing quickly, dramatically, and the world is slowing down.  Days are longer, getting up to 50 hours long as the book slowly rolls to it's end, so too does the world.

So how do people react?  Slowly.  They aren't quite sure what to do.  They look for explanations.  They try to adapt crops that will be able to be grown under vastly different conditions.  The society as a whole decides that they are going to maintain a 24-hour day, which means that they are completely off the sunlight/darkness schedule.  The whole planet becomes shift workers, going to work in full daylight one day, and in pitch darkness the next.  There are people who form communities away from cities to live the longer days, being up for 20+ hours and having equally long nights.  What is the right approach becomes a tension.  It is like religious differences--people are completely divided, and hold their beliefs passionately.  All the while the trees are dying, and the birds--who really use that geomagnetism to get around--drop out of the sky.

This book rolls along at a kind of leisurely pace to a somewhat disappointing end--but the journey is an enjoyable one while it lasts.