I’ve submitted World War Z by Max Brooks as our selection for this month’s book club consisting of about 12 friends. After 6 months of deeply meaningful, emotionally touching, mentally challenging, makes me stabby book selections, it was my turn and dammit I wanted some zombie-goodness. My selection is not exactly being embraced by the women-folk in our book club but such is life.
My bit of a challenge here is neither my hardcopy edition nor my Kindle version have publisher/author provided discussion points for guiding a book club like discussion. I want to make sure we have a good healthy discussion of the book so I’m looking for your suggestions.
Please feel free to contribute “questions” to this thread related to the book that you feel will drive conversation.
What comes next are huge spoilers. I pretty much speak to you as if you’ve read the book and know what I’m talking about.
[Spoiler]One thing I think I’d be interested in discussing is on whether the Redikker Plan, while it worked, costed more than was worth. Initially when I read it I thought something like, “I can see Russia doing that, but the United States using its own citizens as bait?” Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, but was it worth it?
Also, what about the secessionists? They were correct in that they didn’t leave the U.S., the U.S. left them.
Is the U.S. government responsible for “The Great Panic”? They ignored the intelligence agencies, let the company that sold Phalanx do so, etc.
You can have people talk about their favorite scene. Mine were the ones that, to me, were the most moving: The Catacombs, the dog trainer, and the radio listeners. Hell, if I were one of the latter I’d probably off myself too.
Ask them if they think the world’s prepared for another zack attack. We always say “never again” and then a few years down the line everyone gets complacent and history repeats itself.[/Spoiler]
That’s all off the top of my head for now. Damn, I kinda want to reread the book…again.
The book is chock full of fun ethical quandaries, as Rand says; I’d love to talk about those with people.
The book also has a very interesting structure (i.e., multiple POV arranged in roughly chronological order). I think there could be good discussion about the author’s choices in this regard.
If folks aren’t embracing it, that could possibly be an interesting discussion itself: what do fantasy books like this offer that’s distinct from what’s offered by mimetic fiction? China Mieville has a bunch of quotes that could be good jumping-off points, e.g.,
Can you elaborate here? I’ve already read the book when it was released and I just started re-reading it. So far class structure is not really pinging my radar as I read but perhaps I’m forgetting or missing something.
LHoD - Great quotes, I think I might use a couple to help frame a question/discussion point about the book selection itself. WWZ is not the standard type of book that (so far) the women in the club have picked and there is some initial resistance just to the idea of the book. I’m hoping of course that in reading the book they’ll find it is more than just a “zombie book”. I think these are really appropriate to perhaps some of the book club member’s preconceived notions.