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Mar 24, 2008

Jason rated it:

(My full review of this book is longer than Goodreads' word-count limitations; find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

Anytime I hear of some funny, gimmicky book suddenly becoming popular among the hipster set, I always squint my eyes and brace myself for the worst; because usually when it comes to such books, the worst is all you can expect to find, an endless series of fluffy pop-culture pieces designed specifically for crafty More...

8 comments like (110 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2010

Ceridwen rated it:

At an impressionable age, I was traumatized by a double feature of “Evil Dead” and Romero's “Night of the Living Dead.” I was at a slumber party, so I couldn't very well go into another room and fall asleep, lest I wake up surrounding by clippings of my own hair and cuss words written on my face, backwards, so they would read forwards in the mirror. (Teen-aged girls man, worse than zombies.) So stuff about zombies is all shiny and sparkly for me, running with currents of terrifying electricity. More...

80 comments like (41 people liked it)

Jun 06, 2011

mark rated it:

On the menu tonight: WORLD WAR Z

Amuse Bouche
Our rich Tartare a la Homo Sapien will astonish you with its hauntingly familiar flavors, its bright and vivid colors, and the truly gamey taste of terror, tears, and trauma. Fresh kill will never appear so carefully arranged and presented: prepare yourself for a buffet that appeases both the palate and the intellect.

Appetizer
A surprisingly hearty summer soup: tantalizing hints of summer flavors frozen solid, then s More...

10 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2010

John rated it:

There are reasons to be wary of this book. The title is a little silly, and Max Brooks's Zombie Survival Guide was tongue in cheek. Hell, he's the son of legendary comedy director Mel Brooks. And zombies are creatures that gained popularity thanks to film, which is contrary to the nature of most good creatures. Vampires, ghosts, wizards, witches, dragons, orcs, goblins, angels, werewolves and even Frankenstein's undead abomination came from literature first, and entered film later. Film seldom c More...

4 comments like (35 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Ellen rated it:

This book was initially recommended to me by several people in the office and since I love zombies and apocalyptic themes, well, I was pretty excited. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations and I struggled to finish it. (I'm going to write this review under the assumption that the reader has some inkling about the story and how it's constructed.)

There are two issues that killed it for me. Firstly, most of the characters had the same--or similar--voice. Of course this More...

3 comments like (71 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2010

Penny rated it:

I know what you're thinking. "Five stars for this book? Why???"

If you've been following my reviews then you know I tend to stress over how many stars to give a book, and I'm not one to hand out five-star ratings willy-nilly. I'm usually quite cautious when it comes to handing out that all-important fifth star. I'm stingy. That being said, every once in a while a book--that may or may not be amazing--comes along and wows me.

And now you're (probably) thin More...

14 comments like (25 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2010

Paul rated it:

To everything there is a time - a time to reap and a time to plant, a time to listen to Schoenberg and a time to listen to Lady Ga-Ga, a time to read Marcel Proust and a time to read about zombie apocalypses. That time, for me, passed some years ago. I shouldn't've picked up this novel but I was seduced by shedloads of great reviews on this very site.
Although my copy has a front-cover blurb by Simon Pegg, it's his very own great little zom-romcom Shaun of the Dead, plus George Romero's More...

7 comments like (24 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

I just can't get on this bandwagon. The pseudo-government reports the book is written in handicap it in many ways. First, there are no protagonists to grow with, no story arc, no climax, etc. You know what's going to happen from day one--there was a world crisis involving zombies and at least some people live to tell the tale. The sure knowledge of the outcome deflates any tension and book feels flacid. The pseudo-scientific jargon is a poor imitation (my sister, a nurse, tossed aside Brooks' o More...

4 comments like (35 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2009

karen rated it:

this book is about zombies the same way the bible is about god. they are mostly background actors who are the reason other characters do what they do and occasionally they will rarrrr in and kill a bunch of people because they cant help it, but mostly they are an invisible presence, always to be feared but never given a voice.

this whole book takes place after the zombies have already destroyed most of the world and is a collection of the testimonials of hundreds (?) of different cha More...

8 comments like (46 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2011

Maja rated it:

This will be a short review and it will mostly be about my (imaginary) relationship with Alan Alda and my creepy stalker habits. I apologize in advance.

I've always wanted to marry Alan Alda. Not because I find him particularly attractive, but because I enjoy hearing him speak. The way I see it, if I was married to him, I’d be allowed to wake him up at all hours and make him read to me in that sweet, nasal voice and with that subtle but charming accent. Ok, so maybe my view of love a More...

26 comments like (11 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2007

Silvercharmer rated it:

this book. is brutally fantastic. i'm not sure if i've ever used that particular combination of descriptors before, but it fits. this is the same guy who wrote the "zombie survival guide," though i will have to rely on the husband to tell me how much of that manual informs this book, as he has been reading that one. both books were his christmas presents, btw, and i had no real mission to read either, but i started idly flipping through world war z out of boredom, and the next thing yo More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2010

Conrad rated it:

Besides the odd Lovecraft, this is the first horror book I've read since tearing through dozens of Stephen King novels in high school.

I really wanted to like it, but the writer had a couple of ticks that drove me crazy. First of all, the CAs - constant acronyms. Nearly every page, there's an aside in which the character who's being interviewed tells us what an acronym means. It's the worst kind of exposition. If you were gathering a comprehensive oral history of the 00s, and you were More...

7 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 23, 2008

El rated it:

The world was almost brought to complete destruction during what is later referred to as the Zombie War. Max Brooks fancies himself a survivor and takes it upon himself to travel the world and interview others. The book is in an interview layout, a rather interesting approach to this sort of book. The subtitle itself, An Oral History of the Zombie War, illustrates that it is and will only be in a Q&A format. This is simultaneously the book's greatest strength and its biggest weakness.
More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2009

Robin rated it:

Finished reading it and enjoyed it. Will write a full review later but some highlights:

Good:
1 - Totally didn't expect to like a "zombie" book but this author had a great take on that genre.
2 - I appreciated the detail and research that went into presenting this book from many different cultural and diverse locations
3 - Interesting style to present the "story" as a series of interviews - not an easy medium to do well but I liked the way this occur More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2011

Aerin rated it:

My boss recommended this book to me, saying that it dealt with his two favorite subjects: international relations, and zombies. "Well," I said to myself, "I don't think there are very many books out there that can claim to do that." Obviously, I had to check it out.

My boss was right. Not only does this book merge the two topics, it does an exceedingly good job of it. Now, I'm a fan of all things apocalyptic, and I have a healthy appreciation for zombies. Stil More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jul 20, 2008

Andrew rated it:

I haven't seen every zombie movie or read every zombie book in existence, but I have watched enough to know the cliches of the genre. It was so refreshing to read a book that avoided so many of these conventions and covered some new ground. I mean, how many zombie stories span the entire world? How many cover the entire apocalypse, from Patient Zero to the aftermath/rebuilding? Aren't we all a little tired of zombie stories that closely follow a small group of survivors, as they get picked o More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Brett rated it:

I have fretted long and hard about what my choice for book club would be, when that time finally came. I wanted both to pick a piece of literature that would be surprising and that most others in the club would not have considered reading, but I also wanted it to be good. After all, I have spent the last few months reading the likes of The Kite Runner and Water for Elephants. If I can put up with that kind of sissy-pants literature (I am of course, joking. Partially.) then I wanted to make other More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2007

Pamela rated it:

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the livi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2007

April rated it:

I admire the author for his extremely detailed perceptions of a future world recovering from a mass zombie plague, but I just couldn't finish this one. It is written like a case report, with each chapter functioning as a monologue/interview with people of various nations and occupations, all of whom lived through "World War Z." Because the author goes into such incredible detail about the political policies that are put into effect, the military strategies, medical procedures, pharmace More...

3 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

Osho rated it:

Studs Terkel meets Dies the Fire. I was pleasantly surprised to find this a better example of fake sociology than horror. Perhaps its emotional impact is mitigated by the fact that everything is in indirect discourse--the storytellers are mediated by the narrator's presence, creating a one-step-removed framework. I kept waiting for a gut-wrenching story from a parent who had to stave in the skull of his/her reanimated child, but none was forthcoming. There was also little about zombie psychology More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 29, 2007

James added it

Imagine if you will, that today you were to open up a book called "world war z", and that this book was represented as a factual recounting of the events of the Zombie War, which took place roughly twenty years before you opened up the book.

That is the premise of Mx Brooks' "World War Z". In the book, the author presents it as a documentary of sorts, as he goes about interviewing many different people and recording their stories of survival, or their roles i More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 06, 2010

Becky rated it:

I really enjoyed this. I listened to the abridged audiobook (dramatization?), although I do own the book as well. First, I must say that if you read Max Brooks' "Zombie Survival Guide" and are looking for that kind of feel again, you've come to the wrong place. The "Zombie Survival Guide" was a so-serious-it-was-funny look at the methods of surviving a zombie attack. What works, what doesn't, how to use and prepare your weaponry and shelter, etc.

This book explore More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 27, 2008

Sandi rated it:

8/27/08 Update--I'm downgrading my rating of this book. I still like it, but I realize it's not very original. I caught the beginning of "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" on the SciFi channel a few days ago and it was deja-vu. The zombies are reanimated by a virus and you can only kill them by shooting them in the head. Since the movies (and video game) came first, I'm afraid my original rating was a result of ignorance.

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8 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2007

Charissa rated it:

I give up... I can't actually finish the final chapters of this book. I speed read it and that's as good as it's gonna get. Too bad, because I was really riveted by this book for the first 90% of it. I just don't think the author managed to carry that through to the end. Somewhere after the blind Japanese character's chapter I started to get antsy for the book to either ramp it up a notch or to just be over now.

I think the style of writing worked well throughout most of the book More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2009

oriana rated it:

I have this friend who read this right before me, and he hated it. He said that was because Brooks' "liberal Jewish agenda" shone through on like every page. (I should mention that said friend is himself a liberal Jew, for what that's worth.) I can see what he meant, though it didn't bother me the same way. What did bother me, though, was how much this book is framed like a movie. Framed, seriously. As in, each snippet is like a writeup of a scene in a film, including gestures, stage d More...

7 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Trudi rated it:

I can see why this book remains one of the most instantly recognized zombie novels of all time (and continues to be a fan favorite and a darling among "the critics"). It's cool, it's action packed, it's epic and amongst a sub-genre that is in desperate need of something "fresh", World War Z delivers a gut punch to the solar plexus fueled by a tantalizingly original approach.

Most zombie tales (either literary or cinematic) are told using a very small canvas fro More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 14, 2008

Johntaylor1973 rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2007

Ron rated it:

Thanks, JT for heppin' me to The Zombie Survival Guide and subsequently to World War Z.

The purpose of the zombie genre is wish fulfillment. The reason the zombie genre attains popularity is simple. You want to see everyone you hate die. Or preferably, you want everyone you hate to be slow enough that you can kill them yourself. Like a horoscope, the Zombie genre portrays heroes that are reminiscent of how you view yourself. Other people might see you as a fat, lazy, selfish, hypocrit More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2007

Noah rated it:

When I first heard about the book World War Z my first thought was simply “cool”. This also seemed to be the sentiment amongst most people who saw the book or read about. While reading this book, often at work on my breaks, people would stop and ask questions like, “is that book funny?” or, “that looks neat, how is it?” And, each time questions like these were asked, I would put down the book and begin to tell them about many of the interesting ideas in the book, the fact that the zombie war More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2007

Jennie rated it:

The latest offering from Max Brooks is presented as a collection of survivor interviews collected roughly 10 years after a global outbreak of some dreaded zombie infection. World War Z is a difficult book to review, primarily because it isn't really written like a book.

While the book held my interest enough to finish it quickly, I guess I am mainly left with concerns about what the book didn't do. I read zombie tales to watch the world unravel--for the destruction and panic, to More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)