When you grow up the only child of two very famous parents, most people don’t expect much from you, but Max Brooks wanted to prove to himself that he was more than just “Mel Brook’s brat.” After trying his hand at various pursuits, he channeled his lifelong inclination toward the worst case scenario and wrote The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which not only became huge hits among zombie fans, but in the world at large because if you drop the zombie part of the title, he has a great deal of good advice for anyone concerned with disaster survival.