Celebration of the Book
Zombie Film Fest
Friday, November 5, 2010 | 1:00-5:00 pm
Main Library | 111 Library Street NE | Ryerson Auditorium
To prepare for zombie expert Max Brooks' visit, come spend the afternoon watching two of our favorite zombie films. Pop and popcorn will be provided. Parental guidance is requested for children under 18.
Night of the Living Dead (1968, unrated)
1:00 pm | Ryerson Auditorium
In this terrifying cult classic, radiation from a fallen satellite has caused the dead to walk and hunger for human flesh, and once bitten, you become one of them. A group of survivors are barricaded in a farmhouse, while the zombies lurk outside.
Zombieland (2009, R)
3:00 pm | Ryerson Auditorium
This horror-comedy road trip follows a nerdy college student, who has survived the plague that has turned mankind into flesh-devouring zombies, a gun-toting bad-boy who has no fear, and two sisters on their way to an amusement park near Los Angeles.
An Evening with Max Brooks
Friday, November 5 | 7:00 pm
St. Cecilia Music Center | 24 Ransom NE
Max Brooks is considered by many to be one of the world's foremost Zombie Preparedness experts. As we all know, the world we live in has become a rather scary place, and the global increase in the number of Zombie attacks isn't helping matters any. According to the Office of Homeland Security, Brooks is the preeminent authority on dispatching the relentless, flesh-eating armies of Zombies that seem to be everywhere these days.
Brooks' latest release The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks (2009) is the graphic novel that fans demanded: Major zombie attacks from the dawn of humanity. Recorded Attacks reveals how other eras and cultures have dealt with-and survived-the ancient viral plague. By immersing ourselves in past horror, we may yet prevail over the coming outbreak in our time.
The Zombie Survival Guide, Brooks' first release, is your key to success against the hordes of the undead that may be stalking you right now. The book is the result of Brooks' tireless search for both the living dead and ways to eradicate them, which has taken him to over 30 countries and territories in Europe, Russia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Artic and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The New York Times best-seller, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2007), tells the story of the world's desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts as told to the author by various characters around the world. Publishers Weekly called the novel 'surprisingly hard to put down."
The son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Max Brooks is completely dedicated to the cause of raising awareness on the issue of Zombie survival. Brooks is ready to come to Grand Rapids to help prepare us with the latest Zombie techniques.
Born in New York City in 1972, Brooks' introduction to the living dead began with a traumatic childhood incident, an incident he still refuses to discuss. Since that time, he has devoted much of his life to the study and development of anti-ghoul security. He is, at present, the leading Western student in the Afro-Caribbean martial art of Mkunga-Lalem, the world's oldest and most effective anti-ghoul fighting skill.
After working for the BBC in Great Britain and East Africa, Brooks began writing The Zombie Survival Guide. A former writer for Saturday Night Live, he lives in New York City with his wife Michelle and their miniature dachshund, Maizey.
Book Signings
Authors will be available after their events to sign books. Books will be available for purchase from Schuler Books & Music. Twenty percent of all book sales benefit the Grand Rapids Public Library Foundation.
