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The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars (Paperback)
Patrick Hennessey (author)Published: 27/05/2010
A powerful and memorable modern classic, Patrick Hennessy’s memoir offers a candid, honest and utterly gripping account of the exhilaration, boredom and horror of life on the front line.
Patrick Hennessey is pretty much like any other member of Generation X: he spent the first half of the noughties reading books at university, going out, listening to house music and watching war films. He also, as an officer in the Grenadier guards, fought in some of the most violent combat the British army has seen in decades.
Telling the story of how a modern soldier is made, from the testosterone-heavy breeding ground of Sandhurst to the nightmare of Iraq and Afghanistan, The Junior Officers' Reading Club is already being hailed as a modern classic.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780141039268
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 269 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 21 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Soldiers who can write are as rare as writers who can strip down a machinegun in 40 seconds, but Patrick Hennessey is one of the few - Sunday Times
High-tempo, full-on . . . honest and revealing . . . a memoir brimming with vinegar and testosterone - Evening Standard
The military memoir of the moment - Times
A very fine book, a powerful dispatch from the front line ... what impresses is the sheer candour and immediacy - Spectator
An extraordinary memoir . . . Hennessey has a reporter's eye for detail and a soldier's nose for bullshit - Guardian
Outstanding . . . A classic of its kind - William Boyd, Sunday Herald, Books of the Year
Harrowing and frequently funny . . . sparkles with wit, wisdom and boyish glee . . . His generation owns the war - Times
Must rank as the most accomplished work of military witness to emerge from British war-fighting since 1945 - Independent
Remarkable . . . conveys vividly what it's like to experience combat - Jeremy Paxman, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
An engaging mix of war reporting, stream of consciousness and reflections on the nature of conflict in the twenty-first century - Caroline Moorehead, Spectator, Books of the Year
All politicians need to read honest accounts of war - at no time more than now - and Patrick Hennessey's The Junior Officers' Reading Club is one of the very best - David Cameron, Observer, Books of the Year
A vivid account of a rollercoaster tour of duty . . . testosterone-charged, expletive-splattered - Phil Jacobson, Daily Mail
A compelling read . . . Hennessey's book ought to be read by all officers that have yet to experience combat . . . He has written an important portrait of contemporary warfare and the nature of battle - a portrait that can claim a line of descent from Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - Will Pike, British Army Review
An honest acknowledgment of the darkness within us, of the unwelcome emotions that combat can bring about ... Smart and funny ... The Junior Officers' Reading Club is a humdinger - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
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“Essential reading for shovel patrol. Hua!”
A taut, intensely exciting, and perversely enjoyable first-person account of one young man's five-year stint of military tourism.
Given Mr Hennessey's now proven skill with a pen, I would be very keen to...
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“honest and provocative”
As someone in a similar state of affairs to the author (student wishing to become a young officer in the army) this book immediately struck its appeal with me straight from the shelf. Hennessey recalls with intricate... More
“A first hand experience of war”
A slightly quirky writing style, but it is a first hand report of life in the front line, under fire, killing and hoping not to be killed.
Definitely worth a read.
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