Book Review: The Good Soldiers (Iraq)

The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel (Picador, 317 pp, 2009, $20)  

In a word: Wow!

Uniquely organized, The Good Soldiers' chapters each reflect one day in the year-long deployment to Iraq of a Ranger unit in 2007-08, the year of the surge (when this reviewer was deployed to Afghanistan, by the way). The author could have spent those few days (about one a month) embedded with that unit or those days may have been significant for other reasons, such as major altercations with the enemy, whoever they may be. In actuality, the organization and topic of chapters was neither. Or perhaps, both.  But, seamlessly.

This reviewer knew in the first few pages that Good was going to be a good book, a book with an incredible story, well-written. After hooking the reader, author David Finkel (a Pulitzer Prize winner) slipped only slightly but recovered in succeeding chapters until the abrupt final ones. The reader comes to know perhaps half a dozen soldiers with different ranks and life stories: the author follows them throughout.

Seamless Transitions

Through seamless transitions in many chapters, the reader comes to experience a deployment consisting of casualties, R&R (Rest and Relaxation, two weeks mid-tour of a trip back home), Soldier of the Month (Quarter, Year) competitions, going outside the wire (off base), meeting with Iraqi leaders, trying to explain things to family back home, understanding who the Iraqi interpreters are and why they do what they do, and the camaraderie* that military life can generate.

Does it Work?

The author attempts to not merely tell the reader about one year in Iraq but write a book to let the reader live it vicariously. Does it work? Does it read like a novel? Does the reader experience the camaraderie, the frustration of trying to help a people without knowing them and their culture, the frustration of living in a different world where opposite things matter? Perhaps it does work for the reader who has lived the military life or been deployed himself. (There are no women with major roles in this book.) Perhaps it doesn't. But nothing is sugar-coated.

Who are the "Good Soldiers"?

We follow the commanding officer of the battalion through pre-deployment training at Ft. Riley, Kansas (the 'arm pit' of the army) with his active-duty infantry unit, to arrival in Iraq replete with idealism ("Everything is good."), and living the evolution of how that idealism morphs into despondence, with each chapter introduced by a quote from President Bush.

Now I'm off to my library or bookstore to pick up a copy of Thank You For Your Service, also by David Finkel.

*often developing in prisons, summer camps by counselors or colleges and universities by freshman roommates, and other situations where strangers are placed with each other for long periods of time, 24/7, 

Book Review: By Hand, Making Communities: Northern California, Lookbook #13 (homecrafts, knitting, color, fiber arts)(OT)

By Hand, Making Communities: Northern California, Lookbook #13, by Andrea Hungerford (Blueberry Hill, 2020, 25$, 93pp)

Luscious lollipops for the mind in a coffee table book to keep and share and read over again and again. And drool at the photos of nature and yarn shops and colorful yarns and finished products and more.

Issue number 13 focuses on Northern California and clothing

along with a waxed project (like the issue we reviewed yesterday here.)

Candlestick Holders

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By Hand is a series of community-based lookbooks that focus on different fiber and fabric communities around the country. Each serial features photo journals and interviews with both up-and-coming and well-known yarn designers and dyers, local yarn stores, knitwear designers, fabric artists and other makers who share the same philosophy and aesthetic of hand crafting functional forms to share and connect with others in the community. Projects, patterns, classes, and opportunities to purchase the artists' work are included, as well as an opportunity to explore what is beautiful and unique about each locale.

Book Review: By Hand #8, Colorado's Front Range (homecrafts, knitting, color, fiber arts)(OT)

By Hand, Making Communities: Colorado's Front Range, Lookbook #8, by Andrea Hungerford (Blueberry Hill, 2019, 23$, 97pp)

Color! Color! Color! in a series of 'lookbooks' to save and to savor, in print or digital format.

Table of Contents

What is the Front Range? 

It's the eastern section of the southern Rockies, running about 200 miles from Casper, Wyoming, to Pueblo, Colorado, and home to Pikes Peak.

The Fiber Arts

Published three times a year, By Hands feature the fiber arts as well as photography, local yarn shops, handcrafts, projects and patterns and classes and other opportunities. Each issue is a treasure trove to treasure if merely for the photography (and color) and family breweries - even Mason jar beer bread. Or a swatch tree.

Stitch art and weaving and even skin care! And tomorrow we feature another in the series, number 13, Northern California.

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By Hand is a series of community-based lookbooks that focus on different fiber and fabric communities around the country. Each serial features photo journals and interviews with both up-and-coming and well-known yarn designers and dyers, local yarn stores, knitwear designers, fabric artists and other makers who share the same philosophy and aesthetic of hand crafting functional forms to share and connect with others in the community. Projects, patterns, classes, and opportunities to purchase the artists' work are included, as well as an opportunity to explore what is beautiful and unique about each locale.

Book Review: The Wager (shipwreck, mutiny, murder)

The Wager, by David Grann (Vintage Books [Penguin Randomhouse], 2025, 406pp, $21 PB)

Written by the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, The Wager has everything: a shipwreck in the 1740s, the British high seas, mutiny, murder, scurvy and cannibalism, a court-martial, castaways, anarchy and treachery, starvation, officer-gentlemen and conscripted sailors, etc., etc., etc. Of course if you have been in the Navy you will understand more of the sea-faring terminology but, if not, you can skip and skim over it and still read a suspenseful true novel, even if you know how it ends.

The Wager was one ship in a squadron sailing from England around the 'bottom' of South America to find Spanish (enemy) ships laden with treasures for the taking. However, the Wager also found stormy weather and poor health, and was shipwrecked on an island, causing the crew to ration supplies and search for sustenance. 

In time, tempers grew short and the men divided into groups for infighting. Those whose health helped them survive had to respect the British laws of the sea or suffer the consequences - if not onboard, then when they miraculously sailed back to England.

The group divided into two factions, with each taking off, hoping to reach England again. And they did,  months apart, resulting in a book and a trial, the outcome which was conservative but I will leave that to your finishing this whale of a tale.

This reviewer's only comment is that about 2/3 of the way through reading The Wager, I misplaced the book for days and when I found it again, I had forgotten who was who. Therefore, my advice is to perhaps read it in four evenings (it has four sections). 

Makes me want to read Swiss Family Robinson or Robinson Crusoe or Mutiny on the Bounty in the original form! And it was interesting to see the class structure in 18th century British military compared to that in the US military today. And finally, I was so surprised that anyone survived! And yes, a dog makes his appearance, too.