Current Reading: To Afghanistan and Back

Ted Rall, one of my favorite editorial cartoonist, has a book out about his trip to the start of the latest Afghan War. The book, To Afghanistan and Back, is great war reportage as well as being an adventure story. Adventure has been defined as someone having a horrible time far awayMy favorite section is where he goes into details about bathing facilities. He pays extra to get a rusty can cold water to pour over himself. He finds out later that water comes from a open sewer. Yum.

The story of foreign corespondents has been coverage in many other books. Philip Knightly wrote a history of the war corespondents, The First Causalty. The story is told from The Times corespondent Russel in the Crimea to now. Russel, in his relation other war correspondants called himself "the miserable parent of a luckless tribe". See here for more discussion about Russel and jouralism history with Knightly on On The Media. In the book Good Omens, the incarantion War one of the four Horsemen is the best war corespondent in history. Finally, I have a memoir of a war correspondant with the horrible title of Anyone here's been raped and speaks English.