Three years ago this week, a U.S. Army platoon climbed into four Humvees and motored into Sadr City to help clear the streets of sewage. The densely populated Baghdad neighborhood was considered a safe area: Only one American soldier had been killed there during the first year since the U.S. invasion. But, as the Humvees neared their destination, an eerie quiet fell over the narrow streets. Turning a corner, the Americans confronted a wall of flaming garbage. Then the bullets started pouring down from all directions. The platoon's leader ordered his men into an alley and up to the roof of a randomly chosen house. A few miles away, rescue troops were mobilizing. Soon they'd be tearing toward their trapped comrades in Humvees with canvas tops and canvas sides.
Martha Raddatz's arresting new account of that 'œBlack Sunday' firefight isn't just another book on the Iraq war, said Andrew Carroll in The Washington Post. The author has chosen the ambush that announced the blossoming of a lethal insurgency, and as she details the mounting U.S. casualties, The Long Road Home vividly conveys 'œthe suffocating terror of being surrounded in a maze of city streets by an enemy that is seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once.' Raddatz, an ABC News correspondent, also shifts seamlessly between the cornered troops and the worried parents and spouses the soldiers had left behind just weeks earlier. That strategy heightens the tension in a work that's likely to be remembered long after America chooses a new president. With her first book, Raddatz has produced 'œa masterpiece of literary nonfiction that rivals any war-related classic that has preceded it.'
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”