Helpful Score: 3
Not as tense as Perfect Storm but a number of interesting essays on everything from firejumping to whaling to Bosnia.
Helpful Score: 2
Very interesting and true short stories of the journalist, Sebastian Junger.
Helpful Score: 2
Excellent book, Junger drops the reader right into the middle of the action.
Book of essays written by Junger. Two on fire (very interesting), 1 on whale hunters, diamond mine in Sierra Leone, stories on wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Cyprus and Albania.
good reporting from various parts of the world
Loved this book. Junger takes extraordinary risk to place himself in the midst of situations everyone should know about. His writing is lucid and precise, yet comprehensive. The story in this book on the Storm King fire is extremely captivating and heartbreaking. He was also on the ground in Afghanistan before the US overthrow of the Taliban. He was with the Lion of Panjshir writing about his resistance to the Taliban before his assassination days before 9/11. Phenomenal writer, excellent book.
The collection of essays/long articles in this book are each excellent. I love the in-depth reporting, which reminds me of Mark Bowden, whose work i also really enjoy. The only downfall of this book is that the stories are quite dated, as the book was published in 2002 and many of the stories within it were published years before that. While some, like the fire stories, stand up to the test of time, others, such as the war ones, were interesting, but became confusing as many of the places he's reporting from (yugoslavia, for example), no longer even exist.
The writer of The Perfect Storm,will be stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of the fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. What is this fascination that roots fire fighters in their tracks while 300 foot flames twist out of a stand of spruce? Firefighters risking everything in an effort to bring that force under control.
By the author of The Perfect Storm.
