The best:
1. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks: This book transported zombies from their normal horror genre to the realm of historical fiction and it really worked. It wasn't scary unless you actually thought about the world being taken over by the undead. I think that since this book was such a success the time is right for me to publish that zombierotica novel that I've been working on.
And the rest:
2. Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman
3. I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert
4. The Modern Gentleman: A Guide to Essential Manners, Savvy & Vice by Phineas Mollod & Jason Tesauro
5. The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones by Anthony Bourdain
6. Cell by Stephen King
7. On the Wealth of Nations by P.J. O'Rourke
8. Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenom of Christian Rock by Andrew Beaujon
9. The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge by David Kamp and Steven Daly
10. The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash by David Urbanski
11. The Hollywood Project: A Look into the Minds of the Makers of Spiritually Relevant Films by Alex Field
12. The Christian Culture Survival Guide: The Misadventures of an Outsider on the Inside by Matthew Paul Turner
Hey, look at that! I averaged one book a month last year.
Note: This list contains only one book published in 2007 because: a) I rarely buy books right when they are released; b) I have a HUGE reading pile; and c) I'm a pretty slow reader. But the above is what I read - and dug - this past year.
5 comments:
I absolutely loved World War Z. I was looked at kind of funny by my g/f, but she thinks I'm weird anyway. Brooks writes a hell of a compelling and realistic yarn...even if it's about zombies.
i didn't know it's a sort of what-if/ alt. historical fiction. that may be worth a look into.
as far as the zombie fan-fiction, whatever makes you happy, comic book guy.
curious, are those evangelicalism books referred by relevant? i read a good part of the field guide book, but i already know all of that, so i didn't buy it.
I have heard nothing but good about World War Z. Has anyone read the comic series, "The Walking Dead?" My friend loaned me the first few volumes in hardcover, and they were amazing! A very realistic, and thus terrifying look at a zombie apocalypse. I highly recommend it to anyone.
I couldn't get the Amazon link to the book to work in the comment's body. Click on my username to check the books out instead.
By the way...they're adapting WWZ into a feature film. Could be fun.
George - Yeah, his different approach topped The Zombie Survival Guide. And I'd heard that about the movie. Brad Pitt's production company bought the rights. I think the best way to do justice to the book would be to have it be an HBO or Showtime mini-series, but I'll take what I can get.
jasdye - Yeah, it's not really scary at all. It's more of a history book, broken up into people's personal accounts of the war. I wouldn't say it's a "what if" type of thing, though, since this takes place in the near future. But don't get me wrong: we will at one point face a very real zombie apocolypse.
And, yes, those books are from Relevant. They were having a huge sale earlier in the year and I stocked up. I still haven't gotten to all of the ones that I bought. What's lefty are weighty tomes of a more serious, theological nature.
Mehrdad - Actually, when I was living in Columbus I checked out the first two volumes of "The Walking Dead" from the library (the library system there is AWESOME). I'd still like to finish it someday.
I also have the WWZ audiobook, but haven't given it a listen yet. But with Henry Rollins, Carl Reiner, Mark Hamill, John Turturro, Alan Alda, and Rob Reiner all participating it should be a good'un.
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