Thursday, May 12, 2011

World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

Nate Carpenter recommended "World War Z" to me over two years ago. I read it last week.

This is not, on its face, surprising. Several of you have gotten e-mails (quite possibly, after you'd stopped reading the blog) from me years after a recommendation, when I finally got around to viewing/reading/doing what you'd suggested.

I apologize. The queue unfortunately stretches for miles and is filled with an abundance of time-consuming, interesting whatnot.

Back on topic. So I finally read the book last week, and it's just great. What a beautifully written, brilliantly structured piece of work. It's structured in a similar manner to a Studs Terkel book, who has written a series of world-renowned books consisting entirely of interviews to capture the feel of a particular place in time.

Employing this narrative structure as a fictional device is a wonderful idea, and it's used unbelievably well. You might think that a book about 1) zombies and 2) war might be sterile, but World War Z is anything but sterile--it's filled with human, personal moments, and it's deeply poignant.

It's also impossible to put down. Once I started reading, I returned compulsively until (with much regret) I finished.

It's one of the best works of fiction I've read in the last decade, and recommend it wholeheartedly. Here's the Amazon page: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

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