If you read yesterday’s tips for surviving bandits, then you already know there are scarier things to worry about in DayZ than zombies. Sure, the undead will feast on your brains, but they won’t demoralize their prey. People, on the other hand, are capable of doing much worse than cracking open your skull. Sometimes, it’s best to run into a building, find a nice safe corner and wait them out.
What will you do to kill the time? Try reading a book, as crazy as that may sound. Turns out, there are roughly 150 free books in the game that you’ll collect along the way. Naturally, some are better than others, so here are 10 classics that stand out. Did we miss your favorite? Let us know which books you recommend.
Meanwhile, check out the DayZ in-game book covers project on Reddit.
The Call of Cthulhu
From Amazon: The Call of Cthulu, the tale of a horrifying underwater monster coming to life and threatening mankind, is H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous and most widely popular tale, spawning an entire mythology, with the power to strike terror into the hearts of even the Great Old Ones.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
From Amazon: The story is deeply but gently satiric, enlivened with an imaginative plot and brilliant use of nonsense, as it relates Alice’s adventures in a bizarre, topsy-turvy land underground. There she encounters a cast of strange characters and fanciful beasts, including the White Rabbit, March Hare, Mad Hatter, the sleepy Dormouse and grinning Cheshire Cat, the Mock Turtle, the dreadful Queen of Hearts and a host of other unusual creatures.
Heart of Darkness
From Amazon: Heart of Darkness is a short novel written by Joseph Conrad, presented as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow’s job as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. This river is described to be “… a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land.” In the course of his commercial-agent work in Africa, the seaman Marlow becomes obsessed by Mr. Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent, a man of established notoriety among the natives and the European colonials. The story is a thematic exploration of the savagery-versus-civilization relationship, and of the colonialism and the racism that make imperialism possible.
Treasure Island
From Amazon: Set in the eighteenth century, Treasure Island spins a heady tale of piracy, a mysterious treasure map, and a host of sinister characters charged with diabolical intentions. Seen through the eyes of Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy of the Hispaniola, the action-packed adventure tells of a perilous sea journey across the Spanish Main, a mutiny led by the infamous Long John Silver, and a lethal scramble for buried treasure on an exotic isle. Rich in atmosphere and character, Treasure Island continues to mesmerize readers with its perceptive views of the changing nature of human motives.
Around the World in 80 Days
From Amazon: The eccentric English gentleman Phileas Fogg accepts a challenge to circle the globe in no more than 80 days — an incredible feat for the Victorian age. Exotic locales, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and comic relief (chiefly supplied by Fogg’s loyal valet, Passepartout) provide a fantastic blend of adventure, entertainment, and suspense.
The War of the Worlds
From Amazon: The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1898. It is the first-person narrative of the adventures of an unnamed protagonist and his brother in Surrey and London as Earth is invaded by Martians. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories that detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon. The War of the Worlds has two parts, Book One: The Coming of the Martians and Book Two: The Earth under the Martians. The narrator, a philosophically inclined author, struggles to return to his wife while seeing the Martians lay waste to southern England. Book One also imparts the experience of his brother, also unnamed, who describes events in the capital and escapes the Martians by boarding a ship near Tillingham, on the Essex coast.
Moby Dick
From Amazon: A masterpiece of storytelling and symbolic realism, this thrilling maritime adventure and epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding and vengeful sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him and came to dominate his life. But more than just the tale of a hair-raising voyage, Melville’s riveting story passionately probes the human soul. A literary classic first published in 1851, Moby-Dick remains among the most highly acclaimed novels of the sea and a powerful account of the ultimate human struggle.
Dracula
From Amazon: During a business visit to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents. Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count’s transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula’s grim fortress, but a friend’s strange malady — involving sleepwalking, inexplicable blood loss, and mysterious throat wounds — initiates a frantic vampire hunt. The popularity of Bram Stoker’s 1897 horror romance is as deathless as any vampire. Its supernatural appeal has spawned a host of film and stage adaptations, and more than a century after its initial publication, it continues to hold readers spellbound.
Don Quixote
From Amazon: Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain.
Frankenstein
From Amazon: Obsessed with creating life in a laboratory, a medical student haunts graveyards and dissecting rooms in search of the materials for his experiments. But when he achieves success, he rejects his ghastly creation. The creature — longing for love but shunned by all — turns evil and exacts revenge.
