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Cover of World War Z by Max Brooks

World War Z

Max Brooks

  • 422 pages · about 7 hours
  • First published 2006
  • 46 editions
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1 About this book

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a novel in the form of a collection of interviews. Ten years after a worldwide plague of the walking dead came close to destroying humanity, an agent of the United Nations travels the world recording the memories of survivors from every walk of life. Arranged in eight chapters, from the first warnings and the great panic to total war, their accounts show how governments and societies failed, adapted and were changed. Max Brooks published it in 2006 as a more serious follow-up to his Zombie Survival Guide.

  • Humor
  • Horror
  • Survival
  • Science fiction
  • Dystopian fiction
  • Zombies
  • War
  • Imaginary wars and battles

2 What to expect

A zombie novel told as an oral history: dozens of short interviews with survivors around the world, recorded after the war. There is no central hero and no continuous plot; the book builds a global picture of how governments, armies and ordinary people failed or adapted. It is serious, inventive and pointed in its social commentary, and it has very little in common with the film.

Good for readers who want: an unusual take on zombies, global politics in a crisis, and short linked accounts.

3 About Max Brooks

Born 1972

Maximilian Michael Brooks (born May 22, 1972) is an American writer and actor. He is the son of actors Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks' writing focuses on zombie stories. He was a senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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