The Good Soldiers - reading

I find myself once again behind on posting about books, but only because I've been busy with other things. I started walking in the evenings as part of the "Global Corporate Challenge." I took a week vacation and went camping. The Monday I returned to work I presented my final project for a class. Thursday and Friday that week my employer held its second "Hackathon" in which you have about 24 hours to code up some project you want to work on. On Sunday I was on a plane to Florida for a week-long conference. It's been about two weeks since my return and I'm finally getting back to my long to-do list.

Finished "The Good Soldiers" by David Finkel. This tells the story of the 2-16 battalion and their time in Iraq during President Bush's "surge" strategy. The book is well written and well researched, combining first-hand reporting with after-action interviews with many soldiers and leaders of the battalion as they faced IEDs, exchanges of small-arms fire and the challenge of living in a war zone. It describes their injuries - both visible and invisible, and did so the telling of a poignant story. The story also includes what Wikileaks referred to as "Collateral Murder" in which a helicopter fired on two Reuters reporters and their group on the ground for holding a camera, resembling a weapon. It gives the reader a lot to think about. I recommend it strongly.

Sh*t my Dad Says - reading

Finished "Sh*t my Dad Says" by Justin Halpern. I followed the Twitter feed for a while, and it was funny. The book is an expanded version of it telling longer versions of stories that lead to quotes. Much of it was good, but frequently I wanted to hear a bit more from a particular story and the author had already moved on. Overall not bad, though.

Catching up

I have finished making the smaller edits for Tunder's Year (which really needs a new title). All that remains now is to rewrite the ending, and work on a few places I identified that need bigger changes, such as turning a summary into a conversation, etc. I'm excited to be close to the end of a second draft. This is a first for me!

Finished "Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science" by Lawrence M. Krauss. No book about Feynman is complete without discussing his contributions to physics, very little of which I actually understand, but the author made that aspect of Feynman approachable, at least. Other than that, it was a good story about a great mathematician/physicist/explorer/drummer/playboy.

Finished "If You Ask Me" by Betty White. This was very much like catching up on Betty White's blog, if such a thing exists. It consisted of many short stories about widely varied topics. Cute, nonetheless.

I started "One Perfect Word" by Debbie Macomber. It was an interesting premise in which she would select a word and intentionally focus on that word for a whole year, applying it to her life. I was actually curious about which words she used and what process she used to select them, but when it became about how "God takes part in the choosing" and turned to the bible and faith, none of which was mentioned on the cover, I lost interest. I was hoping for something a little more intellectual.

Next up: William Gibson's "Distrust That Particular Flavor." This selection is unrelated to my impression of "One Perfect Word" - I picked both up from the library at the same time.