1. WORLD WAR Z
52 Books in 2025 Begins Now. Expect a new audiobook review, right here, every Monday of 2025.
WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks
My experience:
“An Oral History of the Zombie War,” indeed.
Let’s get this part out on Front Street; I haven’t watched the film. I took one look at that trailer, rolled my eyes, and waved my hand to signify a hard pass. And that was that. That’s how I roll. There’s too much good stuff to watch and not enough time. So why waste a single minute watching something I know I won’t enjoy?
However, the book came highly recommended and I was assured it was nothing like the film.
At a certain point, I became aware that Max Brooks was(is?) Mel Brooks’ son. Next time, don’t bury the lead, eh?
I read this in Audiobook format, and it was quite the experience. I often read along with an ebook, but the audiobook was such an immersive experience in this case that, honestly, it might be the ideal way to ingest this particular story. It comes down to the book’s literary style and the brilliant execution of it in audio.
For those of you unaware, and with a promise of no spoilers ahead, the novel is written in a way that claims that The Zombie War, or “World War Z” was a real event, that all but ended humanity on Earth. And as the survivors rebuilt the world, they wrote down their experiences to document the events. This novel then becomes a collection of all those documents, organized in a chronological order of sorts that serves to tell the story. That’s the literary style part of things, and that alone is enough to make this a very unique reading experience.
The Audiobook takes that concept and runs a marathon with it. Because there is not one narrator. Every section of the book is written by a different POV character and voiced by a different performer. And what a star-studded cast it is! This is where the novel really shone for me. What a stroke of genius. My favorites included Mark Hamill, Alfred Molina, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, and Nathan motha’-flippin’ Fillion.
The story is segmented into eight parts, not counting the introduction by an unnamed investigator who I believe is meant to be Max Brooks himself. I don’t want to spoil you on these eight parts because it’s part of the fun. But I’ll tell you which were my favorites: The Great Panic and Total War.
World War Z was deftly written, wonderfully cast, expertly performed, and so much fun to experience. I read the audiobook over two work days, and the highest praise I think I can give it is that I had an actual honest-to-God Zombie Nightmare on the first night of reading. I’ve never had a nightmare about zombies, including the years I spent regularly watching The Walking Dead back in the day.
A zombie nightmare was a genuinely new experience for me, and it came from listening to this audiobook. Ten out of Ten! Highly recommended!
One book down, 51 to go!
Oy vey…
DNF: THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS
By Robert A. Heinlein
I gave this one an honest try, but as I stated earlier, there’s not enough time in the day. So, I ultimately decided not to finish this and move on to other books on my list. I don’t know if the fault is in the narrator’s choices, the author’s writing, both, or neither. It just didn’t grab me. I had to fight to be interested and since starting my audiobook journey last year, this was the first time that’s happened. The kindly Martin Lejeune recommended this to me and is very upset that I gave it the DNF treatment, but it is what it is. Maybe someday I’ll give it another try. Perhaps in ebook format rather than audiobook. Maybe that’ll help.
ONWARD TO WEEK TWO!
