Wednesday, February 9, 2011

What I've Read (sorta): World War Z

As much as I try to deny it, I guess I am part of the zombie-loving society as well. Can't get enough of it. At least True Blood is my only foray into the vampirefest overrunning America (fuck that abstinence-spewing Twilight bullshit).

Several years ago a video game company sent me the Zombie Survival Guide as a perk to alongside one of the zombiefest games it was promoting. Hey, I don't deny myself a free book, so I read it and laughed and enjoyed it. Last year I heard Max Brooks wrote a sequel of sorts called World War Z. I just didn't think it was worth the time so I ignored it. But when we were looking for audiobooks to listen to on the trip back to Kentucky for the holidays, I downloaded it in case we were feeling up for it. Turns out, the book we chose took up the whole damn trip, so when I finished reading Bloody Crimes last week, I thought it was time to chill out for a week and listen to an easy book instead of jumping right back into something else.

World War Z was fun to listen to, and as a book at least it approaches the zombie material from a different perspective. It assumes we've already experienced the war with zombies, and is written as a first-person look back at the proceedings. It's more of a collection of interviews with various people throughout the world: military leaders, survivalists, politicians, economic leaders and so forth.

The book is definitely a harsh look at America isolationism and takes some typical cracks at consumerism and classism. And while the book is probably a bit more detailed, the audiobook comes with some fun actors doing roles like Alan Alda, John Tuturro and Mark Hammill. It's a short audiobook, just around 6 hours, so it gave me entertainment for a week while riding to and from work on the train. And as someone who always has conversations with Kelly about how we're going to survive the apocalypse (zombie-filled or not), it's a funny reminder of what we need to do be prepared.

No comments: