Books like The Living Dead — picked by fans

This book is one of my all-time favorites, because even though I knew it was fiction, it felt like nonfiction as I was reading it. It was that authentic, and that alive. I truly felt like I was reading an actual history book about an event from my own world. 

The narrative structure was also amazing, telling the entire story through interviews with survivors of the zombie war, and I was riveted by those stories. They showed me what it was like to face that zombie horror, which made me desperate to know what happened, how they survived, and how they managed. Although I was reading, it felt like I was watching actual people tell their tales.

Propaganda is truth; truth is propaganda. We live in an Orwellian world, the world of “alternative narratives” – blatant untruths that are like a twisted mantra tormenting objectivity until it is beaten into submission.

When I first read 1984, I knew Orwell was not predicting the future but describing the past and the betrayal of a socialist revolution by Stalin. But the hideous truth is that Orwell’s depiction of the "evil Soviet empire" is now the new reality, east and west, where tyranny and authoritarianism distort reality to the point where people feel powerless to oppose.

Resist, and the system will get you. Accept, and you will live a life of a deluded soulless husk. You choose!

I‘ve always been fascinated by the dividing line between human and monster. Because, what is a monster?

I know, this kind of question will usually get a quick answer, but I have been thinking about this particular question for quite some time now. I am Legend revolves around this question, and I love it for that. I also love it for the somewhat unexpected twist in the end, and that one can be interpreted as an answer.

Anyway, for me, this book got me thinking about morale and ethics and other stuff. I just like it when a book gets me to that point where I think: wait a moment, but what if…?

John Russo co-authored the original Night of the Living Dead script with Romero. Later on, he came up with a new slant on the zombie apocalypse, with a little more humor added, in Return of the Living Dead, which diverged from the grimmer Romero series and created its own franchise. His mass-market paperback novelization of that movie came out in 1978. I found a copy of it in a thrift store in downtown Dallas in the late Eighties, shoved on a shelf amid multiple copies of Reader’s Digest, its spine split, its pages marked up by an unknown reader with inked exclamation points and multiple question marks. It’s a great read, and a worthy addition to the canon.  

Louise Welsh has written three novels about a pandemic called the Sweats – her Plague Times trilogy. This is the second book in the series. I particularly liked this one because its protagonist, Magnus, is a Scottish not-very-good stand-up comedian, and I too was once a not-very-good aspiring comic! After a series of unfortunate events, Magnus ends up in prison, where the disease is rife. Breaking out, he decides to make for his childhood home on Orkney, accompanied by fellow escapee Jeb. The fast-moving plot will keep you racing through this book.

This was my first foray into post-apocalyptic fiction as a preteen, and one of the first books I remember being unable to put down! In this first book of a series, seven teenagers enter “the Big Empty”, or what was once the central region of the United States. I love the different personalities of each POV character and the struggle each endures to find safety and a sense of normalcy after a virus devastates their world. The mysteries surrounding the Strain 7 virus, the Novo Mundum community, and the dangers of the Big Empty are sure to keep you turning pages!

This novel takes place thirty years after a disease has reduced most of the human population to a primitive state. A thriller with exceptional action scenes and tension, the novel features two converging plotlines that are quests through South America and the southern United States when it is almost devoid of uninfected humans. As with a lot of post-apocalyptic novels the real villains of the story are other humans—their greed and need for control. While this book came out two years after mine, it resonated with me. The themes of trust run strong in both our novels, as well as lengthy stretches of landscape without any humans. 

Call me an end-of-days junkie; I won’t deny it. 

I have a twelve-story climbing rope in my storeroom in case the building catches fire. There’s a fire blanket in there and a go-bag, too. Talking about bomb shelters does something to my blood. Preparations excite me; maybe it’s a competitive streak. When I come face-to-face with disaster, I want the groundwork taken care of so I can focus on what’s important, like grabbing my children, our passports, and snacks for the road.

Reading this book was like living through the nightmare of my dreams. Communities came together, scrounging for food and water. Disaster after disaster was ingeniously avoided with other people’s refuse, raw brain power, and the occasional bullet. Man was pitted against man, and the only prize was survival. It was everything I needed to get a true appreciation of the bricks and mortar surrounding me and the covers… show more.

When I read this book, I was very glad I came to it late. I never had to wait to get the next book in the series. While I am recommending this book in particular because it is the first, the whole trilogy is needed to get the full effect of the story.

Following 16-year-old Adam through this story was fun and exciting. The emotions ranging from scared as hell to hopeful throughout kept me engaged. The main feeling I kept was the hope that he and his family would stay safe in the community stronghold that they had built. I also hoped that even though society had fallen fast, maybe it could eventually be healed. 

This book is set in Wyoming, my home state. Wyoming is a perfect setting for survival stories since it’s sparsely populated and has millions of acres of undeveloped land and wilderness areas to recreate in or explore.

When a cyber-attack collapses the American banking system, society descends into chaos—a scenario that I believe could become a reality someday in the not-so-distant future. This action-packed novel follows a group of anthropology (another of my interests) students stranded in the lawless West as they fight to survive the dissolution of America. I found the what-if scenario to be exciting and frightening, and the setting was realistic and familiar.