From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Max Brooks

Start date: December 1, 2012

Finish date: January 1, 2013

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

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AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

* What is a good book for AW discussion? (Nominations pool)
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* AW Book Club: what we've read
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What Members Thought

Sep 26, 2010 🥀 Rose 🥀 rated it it was ok

Shelves: dystopian-speculative-fiction, zombies

Conceptually I really like it. The idea of telling the story of a zombie "infection" basically killing off the world and all the folks who were involved in some way and what role they themselves played in the war on the zombies through interview (vingettes) was clever. Besides that, the over all story, or lack of story, was boring.

This story felt told over and over and over again in such a repetitive fashion to me. I felt it could have had so many different variations of how it played out using ...more

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May 30, 2008 bsc rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, audiobook, read-2008, horror

Perhaps the best audio book I've ever listened to. It has a full cast of big name actors, including people like Rob Reiner, Mark Hamill, and Henry Rollins. This book is a collection of interviews that take you through the entire war. I'm don't think I would have liked it nearly as much as a paper book, but the audio book version was immensely entertaining. ...more

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Jul 13, 2008 Erin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalypse-dystopia

I know that I'm late coming to this book, but it doesn't seem like something I would ever even pick up at a bookstore, much less read. I've seen a ton of good reviews on it though, and it was on sale at the bookstore, so I'll give it a try.

~~~Really interesting. Told through Q&A narrative interviews (which I loved) with various participants in the war. I'm a big fan of apocalypse-fiction, so this was right up my alley. It also works quite well as a thinly-veiled description of early 80's mentali ...more

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May 17, 2010 Mark Rayner rated it liked it

This is one of those times when I really wish there was three and a half stars. I'm half-way between liking it and really liking this book.

First off, it's not a comedy. His previous zombie effort was written in a tongue-in-cheek tone, and sometimes even funny, but this is a work of serious fiction. (I mean, as serious as any book with zombies in the title can be.)

Instead of telling the story with a standard narrative, Brooks goes for an "oral history" -- not even short stories in some cases, bu ...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Stonebender rated it really liked it

If you don't happen to have that particular perverse interest in zombie movies or after disaster stories there is absolutely no reason to read this book, but if you do like this sort of thing. This is a particularly well done zombie story. Mr. Brooks tells the story through a documentarian doing an Oral history after the war is over. So he gets to tell the story through lots of people in lots of circumstances. Much of the book is about how different governments would react to a zombie invasion. ...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Louie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: zombies

Excellent book! I was surprised by how much research and thought the author must have done to put this book together. This wasn't someone writing from different perspectives of what they think would be a character's view. It seems the author took his time to really breakdown how things would breakdown and what difficulties would exist to rebuild.

I hope there are more books to come. ...more

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Aug 21, 2008 Anne rated it really liked it

Yes, it's about zombies, but it's interesting and well thought out. I wish it had examined the moral and philosophical problems that zombies might present more than it did, but other than that it was an enjoyable read. ...more

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