Daniel
The Humans was excellent, I laughed and cringed at the exploration of what it is to be human from the perspective of a very alien mind. Matt Haag did a fantastic job exploring not just the comedy of the endless odd situations that can arise when an alien has no concept of something like clothes, but showing love, loss, hope, and beauty in a story that really asks what those concepts mean. A fantastic book!
Hans Von Luck was an incredible human being who served in nearly every front in the European theater. His memoirs display his courage, leadership, and most importantly his humanity at every turn. His command during the war was admirable, and this book provides and excellent account of the many battles he fought in, including his defense at Normandy in Operation Goodwood. His memoirs also tell the story of his captivity in Russia after the war, and how he and his fellow prisoners of war coped with the gulag in which he spent 5 years of his life. Von Luck's love of the Russian people only becomes more captivating when put in the context of what he endured under the Soviet regime. All told, this was a very good book that told the story of the war from a perspective not often heard.
A brilliantly written novel about the story a Marine platoon, their Iraqi interpreter and all the wonderful and terrible things they went through before, during, and after their time together fighting in Iraq. Pitre writes this story with beautiful imagery and emotion, bringin out all the feelings, subtle and massive from not just the American main characters, but the Iraqi interpreter and his friends and acquaintances. Pitre gives every character a wonderful voice that shows how human beings handle war, coming home, death, loneliness and so much more. The stories of the Marines returning home and trying to re-enter their normal lives is enlightening and fantastically shows the awkwardness and struggle of trying to develop new relationships and friendships while still dealing with the experiences of being at war. In particular, the way the end of the action is written is wonderful, using official records to bring a close to the emotional tour the reader has experienced. The formal description in the reports he uses to describe the action is stark and brutal, unexpectedly bringing all the emotions of the story to a head in a few short pages.
Fives and Twenty-Fives is a deep and complex novel that I highly recommend. The wars we fight are far from black and white, with many nuanced viewpoints and positions and all very human. The story Pitre tells is beautiful and brutal at the same time, and eminently accessible to readers from any background. This was a book I was sad to finish, but am extremely glad to have had the opportunity to read.
Redeployment is a brilliant book of 12 individual stories, giving many different accounts of what the war in Afghanistan and Iraq were for the Marines who served there. The writing was excellent, truly expressing the wide range of emotion and experience felt not only in the war, but back home as well. Klay did a fantastic job of portraying how no 2 soldiers had the same experience. From the ridiculous and hilarious tasks that soldiers are sometimes given while at war to the small atrocities that haunt the soldiers for years, Redeployment was a fantastic book that I am very glad I found.
Never Let Me Go was a good story, but I had a hard time getting into it. It was well written, but at the same time there were many long segments where the story retold previous events that still seem very trivial and many times I would find myself disappointed after finishing one of these long conversational sections. That being said, it was still a good book with a fascinating premise. It is slow going, but it has a deep story that always reveals just a little more about the characters and the world they are in at just the right moment.
An excellent narrative describing the modern history of Afghanistan and the many political and military influences that lead to the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the country after withdrawal of the Soviet forces. The book was incredibly detailed and taught me a lot of details I didn't know before. Much of the information Coll has in here can only be seen elsewhere in the 9/11 commission report, and Ghost Wars gives a easy to digest narrative of the last several decades of Afghanistan's history. I highly recommend reading it.