Zombies: Complete Guide to the World of the Living Dead

by Zachary Graves

Inspired by horror films of the past, such as George Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead , zombies have come lurching back into the forefront of the public imagination with books such as the Jane Austen parody  Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, video games such as Left 4 Dead and blockbuster movies like Zombieland .  The living dead have never been so popular! We all know that zombies are by no means a modern phenomenon but where did this zombie fascination come from, and where did people like Romero get their inspiration?  This book takes a look at all aspects of this gruesome entity and delves into the less well known mythological and historical side of this fascinating subject.  This hardcover volume is illustrated throughout in ghoulish, garish full color.

This compendium of gore and ghastliness will reveal the complex history of the zombie from its earliest known origins in Haitian Voodoo, through its mysterious mythology to its modern incarnations in graphic novels, film and computer games. In popular culture, readers will find, Zombies have arisen once more. 

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, Zombies, Reference

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2010

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picking this up, I assumed it would largely be just a history of zombie movies, and maybe books. And while those subjects are certainly covered, Zombies goes much more in-depth, devoting a lot of time to the original zombie myths of Haiti. It's actually pretty engrossing, and a very thorough exploration of zombies in all their depictions.

Things do get a little repetitive at times (yes, we get that White Zombie was the first zombie movie), but there's still a lot of material here, even with so many pages devoted to full spreads of movie posters and the like. Zombies is a fine coffee table book, but also well worth reading as a serious resource on the subject.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

For what this book is, the author does a fairly good job at chronicling the history and origination of the Zombie, popular in films and books again, recently. While the real, and historical aspects were interesting to read, I found myself drawn more to the films and literature history of "fake" zombies. I grew up watching a number of these films. I think the author could have done a better job getting more information in some of the shorter areas (Comics, Books, Video Games) vs. Films, which he did an admirable job at covering. One noted miss, in my opinion, was the classic Zombie comic, DeadWorld. How that was overlooked? I have no idea. Perhaps a bit more research into the subject matter in those areas was warranted. Overall, though, a decent read. Interesting pix, and an ok coffee table book as long as you aren't eating anything while reading it...nuff said!

[Jack Hambly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not an "according to Hoyle" reference guide. But it is a fun coffee table book.

[Felicia Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a few spelling errors. Book is kind of repetitive. Focuses too much on certain aspects of zombies. A lot of film summaries. Not what I was expecting

[Mhorg · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those books that comes out and takes advantage of a genre fan. This is an utter waste of reading time and I wouldn't even recommend giving it to a prison library for free. While the section n Voodoo Zombies (which didn't interest me at all) is slightly interesting, it's all the glaring errors in the rest that makes me wonder if Zachary Graves is just a nom de plume for a bunch of people who didn't even bother watching the movies, or just hate the genre so much they decided to make some money off the fans while laughing themselves sick. It would take an entire review in itself to point out (as other reviewers have) the glaring errors in this. One of the main ones, the author claims that it's unclear how to kill the modern or Romero zombie. WHAT? They can be burned to ash, or have their brains destroyed. That stops them pretty damn quickly! This book is such a piece of trash, so poorly researched that I could hardly wait to delete it from my Kindle!

[David Brzezinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an decent read, covering zombies in a cultural sense as well as in popular media. I felt that the book for have gone into greater detail with some of the media references (there are a number of zombie movies that the books mentions in passing, but never revisits them to explain why they were included). There is a section of zombie movies that feels redundant since at least five of the movies (White Zombie, I Walked With A Zombie, and the first three Romero "Dead" movies) are covered extensively in previous chapters. A better use for the chapter would be to give a brief description of some of the other "zombie movies" that are mentioned in the book once, then never mentioned again.

[Jeff Sedlak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a great book especially for the origins of the modern day "zombie". Very interesting and also very informative. The end was more of a reference for books, movies, and comics that have zombies in them but outside of that it was a great read. I would recommend it for anyone who is "into" zombies.

[Therese Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, in that it gave good background on the cultures in which the belief system of zombies arose (kind of pun). But, it devolved into a pop cultural listing that was not particularly well-written or complete. Plus, never print small black text on dark red, as done for the captions-too hard to read.

[Jasmine Stanford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, nice to see some of the history and inspiration for todays zombie

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cute, informative book of information. Several spelling and grammatical errors. I learned about a few new movies and books to check out from this!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting history of the zombie genre.

[Daniel Redford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very few other books are a must-read when it comes to the history of the Zombie phenomena.