Sebastian (The Perfect Storm) Junger’s War is destined to become a classic in combat writing. He spent a long time with an infantry company in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley — the nastiest six miles of valley in the world observing some truly amazing acts of perseverance, camaraderie and heroism. Want to put that morass of a nine-year old war into context? Read this book. It may not make you pro-war or anti-war, but it does fill one with complete admiration for those young men who put themselves into harm’s way.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell is the subject of a cover review by Dave Eggers in today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review. A very very very good and erudite novel about Dutch merchants in Japan in 1799. Mitchell is amazing. This is a great piece of historical fiction.
I read War in a day, what amazed me was how much they longed for a firefight, to break the crushing boredom. Even though that could lead to death. The realization also that adjustment back to normal life was almost impossible where most things dont matter and everything does on a war front that doesnt exist in the traditional sense.
I finished War 2 weeks ago, very good piece of literature and a demonstration that old-school journalism (or what we have idealized as such) still lives in the world of the internet.
Can wait to see Restrepo, the documentary they shot on the 14 month tour in Afghanistan.