Rife with misadventures, brushes with death, and moments of existential insight, The End of the World Notwithstanding is a hilarious yet reflective look at the emotional experiences that make everyday life exciting-and the physical ones that remind us we're lucky to be alive.

I'm traveling alone, renting a cabin at a normally tranquil spot-that's called foreshadowing-on the banks of the Big Laramie River at the edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest.

So begins Janna L. Goodwin's lighthearted collection of nail-biting stories, all true, and all of which fill the listener with wonder ? as in, "I wonder how any of us survives?"

Encounters with wildfire, insects, house pets, weather, gravity, predators, bullies, and the most potent force of all-fear itself-unfold in remote landscapes of the American West (and Midwest); on the neon-splashed sidewalks of Hollywood; at a Catskills summer camp for actors; in the lavish apartment of a famous senator; in a Hawaiian beach condo; on the side of a mountain above the Mediterranean Sea; and far beneath the streets of Paris. Goodwin looks for and ultimately finds meaning (if not security) in a clear-eyed acknowledgment of our shared, human condition-and in laughter.