Book Review: No Ordinary Assignment (war correspondent, the Arab world, woman freelance journalist) (OT)

 No Ordinary Assignment: A Memoir, by Jane Ferguson (Mariner Books, 2023, 336pp, $29.99)

No Ordinary Assignment may also be a candidate for Best Book of the Year, even though it came out in 2023 rather than 2025. It is spell-binding, a book you can't put down. The only drawback is the lack of a map, since not every reader is intimately familiar with the Arab world.

This is Her Story

Feel free to skip the first (or more) chapters about the author's childhood though the early chapters do explain how she feels, even later in life. Author Jane Ferguson had always wanted to be a war correspondent so she made it happen.

She tells of the difference between ". . . visiting a country and living in it, one reason why journalists must have at some point lived in the regions they report on." (p.198) Ferguson learned Arabic in just four months: a difficult language for native English speakers.

Most often a free-lance journalist, Ferguson does at times write for the Washington Post and other notable organizations since she is willing to go behind the lines for a story.  She also becomes a TV reporter.

Primarily she lives a life (to us) of adventure - and danger, going into hot spots without  a weapon but taking a recorder. She lives with just what she can carry but takes breaks in international cities like Beirut.

And after years of doing what she loves, Ferguson begins to wonder if she makes a difference, something we all grapple with at times.

"I was finally able to cry, releasing the sorrow I had stuffed down while I was out reporting. Here was the reason I did this work. Women like Adiba were teaching me in a subtle way how to find a place for myself in journalism, engrossed in real stories with real people.

"I didn't know how I was going to navigate the industry or build a career doing this but this was the work I needed to do. This was the only kind of journalist I wanted to be." (p. 245) 

Writing Style

Being from the UK perhaps may explain some voluminous sentences this reviewer got lost in but to balance it off were the cliffhangers at the end of chapters and the humor infused without. Oh, and the dreams we all have of 'doing the world.'