If you were a student before or during the early days of the Internet Age, you probably spent at least a little time in a library. Maybe you spent a lot of time in a library. The library was the place to go for sources on finishing your book reports, and for getting free books or movies or music. Sometimes the library was just a place to go to hang out.

I’m starting off with Max Brooks’ World War Z because this book is more than just a zombie novel. It’s one of the finest pieces of fiction published in the last decade or so. Really. I swear. I’m not just saying that because I like zombie books. World War Z is literature. The basis of the book is that it’s a collection of stories told by survivors of a great war against the zombies. It reads real, very real. Sometimes too real.

Is reading dying or dead? It would seem so. Every few months there’s an article online or in the newspapers about how people don’t read nearly as much as they used to, or that fewer and fewer people pick up a book. But I’d argue otherwise. I think more people are reading than ever before.