The Zombie Survival Guide

For all that I've written about zombies lately I should almost start labeling some of these blogs with that as a category. I'm still trying to figure out what my fascination with the subject is. I think it stems from the fact that these stories deal more with the human condition than they do gore or horror really. They deal with the idea of - what are people made of when put into the worst possible situations - at their core, what are people made up of?
The title of the book says it all - it's about how to survive in a world where zombies exist, large and small. The book itself is played completely straight. It's not intending to be goofy, it's more like Welle's War of the World telecast - in fact a conspiracy theorist could argue that perhaps this book is real - given how it's final section in the book deals with alleged outbreaks and their cover-ups.
Because of how seriously the book takes itself in the form of a survival guide there is no ongoing narrative, which is something that usually drives me in wanting to invest in something. Instead what we get is Brooks explaining to us a world, not far off from our own, and how we can use the world that we live in to fight off the undead masses.
I pick this and World War Z up at the same time, but I think I'm going to try and hold off from reading that right away. I've become bad about reading books in recent years and so I'm going to put a few others ahead of it. All in all this is a book that's a lot of fun if you're into the idea of zombies at all. It's the kind of book that you can pick up and read a bit at a time and then come back to later - so there is a bit of a coffee table vibe to it in that sense, which might help those who are only casually interested. And if you already love this book a quick internet search reveals that there are hordes of merchandise that you can purchase to go along with it including calendars, kits, etc...
The one really interesting thing about reading all of this zombie literature is that you can't help but think how well you yourself would fare in the zombie apocalypse. Too many variables to give an accurate and honest answer - but at the very least, having read what I've read - I'd like to think I'd at least have a fighting chance!