Dog-tag Days of Summer
I am swamped, between the odious move to another house and the summer courses, but still make time to do the traditional summer reading. NPR, yesterday, had a Georgetown professor on Fresh Air who made recommendations for summer reading that were for lack of a better term, "fiction lite." Yawn. For those nonfiction and non-lite readers, I have a few suggestions that I will post over the next few days.
My War: Killing Time in Iraq
Colby Buzzell
Putnam Press
An unemployed and unrepentant bad ass joins the military after a hard night of drinking, and, big surprise, is deployed to Iraq. What makes this self-admitted sloth different is that he can write, and write he does, much to his commanders' displeasure. Buzzell's book started out as a blog, straight from Baghdad, and the book connects blog entries by a narrative that gives them background and depth. Buzzell, for all his initial posturing, is a avid reader and a gifted observer and writer of the absurdities of the "War on Terror" in Iraq. Some of his entries are hilarious, some heart-breaking, and some just downright terrifying. I taught this book in my literary analysis course, and my students gained insight into a war that they are incredibly disconnected from, e.g. one student, I hazard to guess, mistook Iraq for Afghanistan and asked why Buzzell never mentioned bin Laden. As related by a myriad of emails, many students didn't sell back the book and gave it to friends and relatives. This, in itself, is a small miracle and speaks to what is so compelling about Buzzell's writing: it speaks to nearly everyone, in some manner, who reads it. He sugarcoats nothing, and is not afraid to portray himself as a complete idiot in a couple of entries (illicit liquor and the phrase "money" fuels one of the most hilarious and yet pitiful examples). Buzzell's book is a glorious page-turner, no matter what your position is on the war. His position, which I personally think is compellingly written, is complex, as complex as the problems that plague benighted Iraq.
I am swamped, between the odious move to another house and the summer courses, but still make time to do the traditional summer reading. NPR, yesterday, had a Georgetown professor on Fresh Air who made recommendations for summer reading that were for lack of a better term, "fiction lite." Yawn. For those nonfiction and non-lite readers, I have a few suggestions that I will post over the next few days.
My War: Killing Time in Iraq
Colby Buzzell
Putnam Press
An unemployed and unrepentant bad ass joins the military after a hard night of drinking, and, big surprise, is deployed to Iraq. What makes this self-admitted sloth different is that he can write, and write he does, much to his commanders' displeasure. Buzzell's book started out as a blog, straight from Baghdad, and the book connects blog entries by a narrative that gives them background and depth. Buzzell, for all his initial posturing, is a avid reader and a gifted observer and writer of the absurdities of the "War on Terror" in Iraq. Some of his entries are hilarious, some heart-breaking, and some just downright terrifying. I taught this book in my literary analysis course, and my students gained insight into a war that they are incredibly disconnected from, e.g. one student, I hazard to guess, mistook Iraq for Afghanistan and asked why Buzzell never mentioned bin Laden. As related by a myriad of emails, many students didn't sell back the book and gave it to friends and relatives. This, in itself, is a small miracle and speaks to what is so compelling about Buzzell's writing: it speaks to nearly everyone, in some manner, who reads it. He sugarcoats nothing, and is not afraid to portray himself as a complete idiot in a couple of entries (illicit liquor and the phrase "money" fuels one of the most hilarious and yet pitiful examples). Buzzell's book is a glorious page-turner, no matter what your position is on the war. His position, which I personally think is compellingly written, is complex, as complex as the problems that plague benighted Iraq.
posted by mariestaad at 2:12 PM
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