After watching the wonderful World War Z movie, I looked up the book on wikipedia to get additional information on the story. I discovered that the movie is actually totally different from the book, but it sounded fascinating so I decided to check it out. Great decision.

A true movie of the book would be like a Ken Burns documentary. WWZ is essentially a series of first-person short stories on a common theme telling a chronological history of the zombie apocalypse. Some stories are a couple of paragraphs, others go on for a while, but each feels essential.

This is a wonderfully imaginative book, and remarkably well thought out. It is a very believable story; the author really thought about realistic scenarios for a strange plague that must be fought not with medical treatment but with guns and swords.

The book is surprisingly affecting. I'd felt moved by the overwhelming sadness, excited by the suspense, and raged by incompetence and uncaring (notable in an interview with a Dick Cheney-like character who tries to justify the government's weak response to the initial threat).

The book also finally let me make sense of The Zombie Survival Guide, which someone gave me years ago and which was also written by Max. If I read it after reading WWZ it would have been, I suspect, far more interesting.

Anyway, if you want an exciting, thoughtful, moving book about zombies, this is the one. As good as the movie but entirely different.