World War Z - Max Brooks

I found a copy of World War Z by Max Brooks at my local library. I've read some great reviews and decided to read it. Of course, while I was finishing up Paul of Dune, my husband grabbed it from my shelf and proceeded to devour it in a couple of days. He loved it. He's pretty picky too so I thought that was a great sign.

I loved it too. It was seriously hard to put down.

The book's author is a survivor of the zombie war which has been over for 10 years. He compiles interviews with various survivors who retell their part in the war. Some interviews are just a couple of pages while other are longer. And it's a global perspective so the author jumps all over the world. He interviews regular people, mothers, military personnel, doctors, etc. which give the tales such a realistic perspective. The book is segmented into time frames of the war, such as: Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, etc. So the reader really sees how things escalated and how eventually people survived and won the war.

I've read a review or two where this type of writing is a turn-off because it doesn't follow the same people through the whole book. And how there isn't really a "plot" this way. But I loved it. I thought it was much more intense by showing different perspectives globally. And I think Max Brooks really researched all the military side. Very realistic.

My husband liked that he thanked George A. Romero at the end. And on an alternate cover, Simon Pegg gives it a thumbs up. But be warned: this isn't a funny book...even though zombies are the antagonists, they are portrayed realistically and scarily. And it makes you wonder, if some virus outbreak did occur...what would happen?

Here's an alternate cover:

And because I like the movie Shaun of the Dead (with Simon Pegg):
Also Reviewed By:

Urban Bachelorette
A Book Blog. Period.

Oh...and it might be made into a movie!!!

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I've been getting some great comments on this book!

For fun, calculate your survival odds by answering a few questions here (thanks Kim L!)
I personally have a 31% chance of survival. Not too good :(

And thanks to Dennis the Vizsla who mentioned another Max Brooks book I NEED to read, The Zombie Survival Guide:

Paul of Dune

A little while back, I won Paul of Dune from Medieval Bookworm. I was excited because I've been meaning to read the Dune series. You can check out my review to the first Dune book.

Paul of Dune was written by Frank Herbert's son Brian and another great writer, Kevin J. Anderson. It tells the story of the years between the first book, Dune, and the second book Dune Messiah.

I am always a little leery when someone other than the original author writes part of the series. But this was great! It not only fills in the gap between the stories but also gives some history and background from when Paul was younger and before the events in Dune takes place.

I will warn you though that unless you've read Dune...or at the very least seen the movie, you will probably not want to read Paul of Dune. But from everything that happens in the book, it really is a must read for the series.

I read for Carl's Sci-Fi Experience Challenge.

Also Reviewed By:
Age 30+: A Lifetime of Books

Had to Share

So I was coming home from work last night, riding on the subway, when I noticed a guy sitting and reading a book. Now...this is not normally a weird thing. But the guy was around my age (mid-twenties to mid-thirties), pretty normal looking, and he was silently laughing to himself as he read. What book was he reading??
Hmmmm....

And it's the NINTH book in the series!! Do you think he's read all nine???

Bad Bloggers

I found an interesting idea over at Stuff As Dreams Are Made On. He came up with the idea of Bad Bloggers...a weekly listing of all the books added to your TBR pile and where you found them. I thought this was a fun idea and decided to join when my brother asked me "Where do you find all the books you read? It seems very random." Ha!

So here's just a few books I've recently found:

Live Nude Girl: My Life as An Object - Kathleen Rooney
From BookLust (doesn't she have the a gorgeous blog header?)

The Girl She Used to Be - David Cristofano
From Drey's Library

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
From The Book Lady's Blog

And from Goodreads friends:

Outcasts of Skagaray - Andrew Clarke
Roanoke: A Novel of Elizabethan Intrigue - Margaret Lawrence

And in the mail:

Leaper: The Misadventures of a Not-Necessarily-Super Hero - Geoffrey Wood
From Goodreads

The Queen's Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I - Benjamin Woolley
From Historical-Fiction.com


Did you find any interesting books to read this week?

Book Club Question

Just a quick question. I just started up a little book club with some friends and co-workers here in NYC. We decided to read a John Updike book but I've never read anything of his. Have you? Do you have a John Updike novel you'd recommend? Thanks!

Dune - Frank Herbert

Dune by Frank Herbert has to be one of my favorite Sci-Fi books of all time. I first read it back in high school and I decided to re-read this one for Carl's Sci-Fi Experience.

Dune was written in 1965 and won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for best novel. So yeah, it's good. Luckily I found the first three books in the series in my apartment's basement. AND I won a copy of the new sequel, Paul of Dune, from Medieval Bookworm which I am reading now.

Here's the synopsis:

In the future, the empire is a collection of planets and each planet is ruled by a House. Dune's story follows the House of Atreides: Duke Leto Atreides, the Duke's concubine Lady Jessica, and their fifteen year old son Paul. They live on a lush world and are well loved by their people. But the Emporer has decreed that they leave their home world and rule a desert planet called Arrakis. The previous rulers of Arrakis were the Harkonnens, the bitter enemy of the House Atreides.

So what's so special about this desert planet? It's the only place spice melange is found. Spice is highly addictive and valuable commodity. It gives greater awareness, extends life, and is required for space travel. Whoever controls the spice has great power.

But treachery abounds once the family settles on Arrakis. Betrayed by a traitor, Paul and his mother are captured and left to die on the desert planet. The desert's greatest enemy (after death by dehydration) is huge sand worms, also known as makers. Just walking on the sand causes vibrations which attract these worms which can swallow up an entire mining operation. Oh, and the Fremen will kill you as well. The Fremen are the rogue desert people.

Paul and Jessica fall into the hands of the Fremen and becomes known as Paul Maud'Dib, a warrior and leader in the Fremen society. But is Paul the prophesied Fremen messiah? Will he get revenge for his family? Will he lead the Fremen?

Oh, this is just a great book. It's got tons of politics, intrigue, deception, treachery, battles, warriors, love and hate. It's got it all.

The cover above is the one I have but here's some other fun covers.

This one's my favorite with the huge worm:
And I think this is the version I originally read:
And of course, they made a couple great movies based on the book. The first one, Dune, made in 1984 is just classic. Here's some photos:
Here's Paul with a Fremen girl. I love their suits which are made to recycle the body's moisture for drinking.
And of course, Sting is in it which is just too fun to watch:
And back in 2000 there was Dune the miniseries, which was actually really well done.
And while Google searching just now, I found this:
I love James McAvoy and Susan Sarandon and will have to watch this once I've read Children of Dune.

Also Reviewed By:

The Book Nest

In the Shadow of Mt. TBR

Egypt - Post One

So I'm finally getting around to posting some of our photos from our trip to Egypt. If you've been following this blog, you'll know that my husband and I went to Egypt for our belated honeymoon trip this past November. It was the perfect weather and time for Egypt. Mid seventies and not very many tourists. We had only booked the first four nights at the hotel in Sharm el Sheikh and the rest we played by ear. I'll be posting these pictures in increments. I hope you enjoy them :)

I came up with the idea to go to Egypt because while riding the subway one morning and reading the ads, I noticed that Delta just opened a direct flight from JFK to Cairo.


We took the overnight flight from JFK and this is us flying over Cairo. Yeah. It was huge. Think about this: NYC has 1,104 people per square kilometer while Cairo has 9,031 (via Wikipedia). Yeah. NYC really felt deserted after Cairo. And yes...that is a ton of smog:

But I'll come back to Cairo. We flew into the airport and then took an Egypt Air flight to Sharm el Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula. (Quick note: we found out once we went there that the Sinai Peninsula is considered part of Asia. And because of it's turbulent history, you don't need a visa to go to Sharm or other resorts, but if you travel on to other parts of Egypt you will need one.) I've lived in different areas of Nevada so I thought I knew what "desert" meant. I had no clue. This is the Sinai Peninsula from the air:

From the airport at Sharm we had to figure out how to get a taxi to the hotel. There really isn't much information. If you go, look out for the black and white cars...they are the taxis and you have to go searching for them. We got a hired car which cost a little more but we learned :) The driver was nice and swung us by a very cool green mosque that I had seen from the road.We stayed at the Hilton Waterfalls and our view was gorgeous. Here's the view from our room's balcony that night:
And the next morning we could see the pools and the Red Sea in the background. Beautiful.And here's views of the hotel grounds as we made our way down to the pools and the Red Sea.

Here's Robb (he said I can use his name instead of "my husband") testing out the Red Sea. It was so clear you could see the colorful fish swimming around:Here's the resort's beach:And this is me chilling with a good book:
I loved seeing the oddness of resort life which is definitely not anything like traditional Egyptian culture:I did get to go snorkeling for the first time. And this was a perfect place to do it. The reef dropped off sharp, I literally gasped which isn't a good thing when you are snorkeling :)
And here's us after snorkeling:
Hope you enjoyed this post. My next Egypt post will take us to the souks of Sharm el Sheikh and to the top of Mt. Sinai.