capin Rob said:
As for the Non-Fiction, A few months ago I read Jarhead, By Anthony Swofford. It was a great read about the Persian gulf war. I just recently picked up a copy of Generation Kill, It's about US Marines in Iraq. (If you can't tell, I'm into books on war.)
Have you seen the HBO mini-series of Generation Kill? I really enjoyed that but I haven't read the book. It's a very different kind of war story more akin to Jarhead (according to my friends, at least, I haven't seen that) so you might enjoy it. There is rarely any combat and pretty much no big set pieces like in most war dramas, such as Band of Brothers. I don't mean to ruin it for you, but I just think you should go in expecting as much so you can appreciate what's there - a fantastic story and criticism of the invasion of Iraq.
Obviously, I can't comment on how true to the book the show was, but it's made by David Simon, a reporter himself, who also created The Wire, which is another brilliant show, so I trust that he would stay as close to the book as he'd be allowed.
I, myself, don't read too much but I will occasionally pick up a book. A few months back I read Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy, three fantastic books. It's just such a shame that he died before finishing off more, since he'd planned on writing up to ten in the series! They are all very good thrillers, and the films are out soon too (in fact, most of Europe has the DVD of the second now, whereas in the UK we're still waiting on the first ... ridiculous). Definitely page turners and worth a look if that's anyone's kind of thing.
At the moment I'm reading a book called Homicide: Life On the Killing Streets. It's, again, David Simon. He chronicles a year he took out of reporting in the Baltimore Sun to sit with the homicide unit. That said - he wrights as though it's fiction and gives great insight into the mind of a "murder police", even momentarily criticizing typical crime writers like Agatha Christie for their skewed portrayal of how homicide detectives work - there is no passion to avenge a victim, only to gain a stat.
It's so brilliant because it's so brutally honest. You'll be laughing at the banter between police, and then suddenly feel disgust at the surrounding city and the standards people allow themselves to live in. Then, just when you think these people deserve no pity, he pulls it from under you and shows you innocence in it's most honest form (for example, the main murder he follows - an 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped, stabbed several times, and possibly raped, before being left in an ally ... just because she chose to go the library on her own after school). Simon knows that you're not police and uses it to his advantage, for, while they will be desensitized to it all, you aren't, and you really get pulled into the struggle.
Yeah, heard that before. Was a bit of a scatterbrain I suppose, but I really like his work. In some ways he writes really simplistic but for me that's just the beauty about his work. He's got a very good insight about the way people think. I've tried to read Lolita once, but in my opinion that Nabokov was so full of himself and trying to be smart all the time that it was a bit over the top. Vonnegut was just down to earth, that's one of the reasons I think he's one of the best.
