World War Z by Max Brooks

     "The boy's skin was as cold and gray as the cement on which he lay.  I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.  His eyes were wild, wide and sunken back in their sockets.  They remained locked on my like a predatory beast."

 At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book because it's written as a series of interviews rather than a regular fictional story, but I quickly got caught up in each of the personal narratives.  It starts with the first outbreak in China and continues on with the rapid spread of "a new viral outbreak that first eliminated its victim, then reanimated his corpse into some kind of homicidal berzerker."  Each firsthand account gives you another piece of the larger puzzle:  the spreading contagion, the failed attempts to contain it, the growing panic, the military strikes, the stories of those who survived and those who died, the successes and failures, and what's left of the world at the end of the Zombie War.

 World War Z is a uniquely-told and compelling read.  I don't know why it took me so long to get around to reading it, but I'm glad I finally did.  The movie version of World War Z comes out this June.  And while I can't quite picture how they're going to turn this book into a movie, I can't wait to see how they do it.