“I believe the dead are at peace, but it is not right to speak of them with levity.” ― Emily Bronté, Wuthering Heights

"Yes, A Questionable Shape is that zombie novel you’ve been hearing about, but don’t believe the publicity: Bennett Sims, the book’s author, is barely interested in genre at all. This isn’t even The Keep or Motherless Brooklyn—something that stokes the intellect while still delivering generic thrills. I get no sense Bennett Sims loves zombies.

     Mostly, this book is concerned with memory. The undead 'return to the familiar,' wandering 'to nostalgically charged sites from their former lives.' Do they understand why they remember what they remember? Do any of us? For all the talk about the undead, Sims uses very few tropes from zombie narratives—not even to subvert them. He demonstrates little affection for genre….
     Over and over again, Sims demonstrates astonishing skill with image. Shadows sweep 'back and forth, like a massive phantasmal broom.' The wax at the base of a candlestick looks 'as if a congregation of gnarled ghosts was kneeling in prayer before the flame.' These similes transform the familiar world into surreal gems, so concrete that I can feel each in my hand."
— Benjamin Rybeck, ElectricLiterature
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"Quirk Books’s spring catalog [2009] features at least one title I’d like to get my hands on: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. Like a DVD loaded with extras, the book includes the original text of the Regency classic, juiced up with 'all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.'”

— Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times
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Zusammenarbeit Macht Frei

From: Wikipedia

"In The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact With Hitler, Ben Urwand draws on a wealth of previously uncited documents to argue that Hollywood studios, in an effort to protect the German market for their movies, not only acquiesced to Nazi censorship but also actively and enthusiastically cooperated with that regime’s global propaganda effort.

     In the 1930s 'Hollywood is not just collaborating with Nazi Germany,' Mr. Urwand said by telephone from Cambridge, Mass., where he is currently at Harvard’s prestigious Society of Fellows. 'It’s also collaborating with Adolf Hitler, the person and human being.'…
     Mr. Urwand strongly defended the notion of 'collaboration,' noting that the word (and its German equivalent, Zusammenarbeit) occurs repeatedly in documents on both sides.
     And he bristled at the suggestion that Hollywood had a better record against Nazism than other major industries, to say nothing of the State Department, which repeatedly blocked efforts to expand visas for Jewish refugees.
     'The State Department’s record is atrocious,' he said. 'But the State Department did not finance the production of Nazi armaments. It did not distribute pro-Nazi newsreels in Germany. It did not meet with Nazi officials and do secret deals.'
     'Collaboration,' he added, 'is what the studios were doing, and how they describe it.'”
— Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times
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Mr. Urwand's book will be released in October; preorder it here...