Written by Max Brooks. Published by Crown Publishers in 2006. 342 pages. Rating: 4/5.

We are living through a pandemic the world hasn’t seen in over a century.  COVID-19 has infected over 400,000+ people across 150+ countries.  Things are looking bleak as we sit inside our houses under self-quarantine.  We are supposed to practice social distancing to limit the spread of the Coronavirus and flatten the curve. 

I, like many of you, have a ton of time on my hands since my job has shut its doors to the public.  Only essential employees are needed to keep the place running.  To pass the time I have a stockpile of books to keep my sanity while I’m keeping away from others.  If there’s ever was a time to lounge around reading, now’s the time. 

The first book I finished since I started to self-quarantine is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks.  Brooks helped bring zombie horror into pop-culture in the early 2000s with The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, earning him recognition among horror enthusiasts and the US government.  He’s spoken to the US Naval War College and helped organize disaster responses; his website has more information about the projects he’s worked on.  Coincidentally, NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross just released an interview with Brooks yesterday discussing an upcoming book of his and how the US has responded to the Coronavirus.  I highly recommend this forty-minute podcast, Brooks provides valuable insight into today’s pandemic and his books.   

When you think of a zombie book, you might envision something like Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, or The Walking Dead.  You have a group of survivors hold up in some building while the dead rattle the doors and windows.  Brooks takes that trope and goes in a different direction.  In World War Z he takes the threat of a zombie apocalypse seriously and imagines what would happen on a world-wide scale.

The main premise of the book is that humanity won the zombie war and an intrepid reporter is traveling around to create an oral history of the war.  The narrator interviews dozens of veterans of the zombie war who gives us an understanding of how humanity fought back.  The series of interviews begin with a doctor who first investigated the virus in rural China and quickly progresses to how the virus spread.  Then the book covers people’s response to the zombie virus, what different countries did to combat the undead, etc…

World War Z tells a social history of this fictional zombie war.  The use of interviews makes the whole book seem real.  There are few instances of your cliché survivors getting overrun by a zombie horde.  Most of the interviews tell stories that you might not think about during a zombie apocalypse.  Brooks talks about how society would shift to favor people who know how to work with their hands.  He talks how the ineptitude of a bureaucracy could hamper disaster response.  There are real issues hidden behind this fictional zombie apocalypse novel. 

One of the events that stood out to me is the battle of Yonkers.  The United States wanted to stage a highly publicized battle against the undead outside of New York City.  They had about a thousand infantry armed with high-tech gadgets, supported by tanks and air, and still lost.  It’s not so much the battle itself that stands out to me, but the United States’ reliance on technology when waging war.  Brooks uses this fictional battle to highlight the United States’ hubris in believing technology wins wars.  Sure it plays a big part, but other factors go into winning a war.  Especially with an enemy who won’t ever surrender. 

Overall, this book was a fun, quick read.  It’s approach to the zombie apocalypse stands out as realistic, but not so much to make it boring.  Brooks is an excellent writer and his expertise is shown throughout this book.  I don’t think I’ll read his other zombie books like The Zombie Survival Guide or The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, but that’s because I got a ton of other books on my list.  The 2013 movie adaptation is worth a watch too, though it is an imperfect rendition of the book I reviewed here. 

Stay safe and don’t get infected with the Coronavirus. 
Do you have any books you plan on reading during this time of social distancing?  Let me know in the comments!