I’m a reading machine…
...and I don't work for nobody but the Tempe Public Library... and soon, the Chandler Public Library (once I get through all the books I have checked out from Tempe)... and, of course, UPI.
OK, so that reference didn't really work. But what I'm getting at here is that I read books now... from start to finish... for fun. Yeah, get jealous, still-in-college friends.
On Thursday, I finished Len Downie's novel, "The Rules of the Game." And tonight, I finished reading "War Reporting for Cowards," which many of you have seen me toting around Tempe and Chandler for the past few weeks. In case you're wondering what I thought of the latter, here's what I tapped out over at Goodreads after triumphantly moving the book from "currently reading" to my "read" shelf:
War Reporting for Cowards by Chris Ayres
My review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
I first heard about Chris Ayres' "War Reporting for Cowards" when he appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" earlier this year to promote a more recent book that he had written. Ayres was a funny guy on TV as well as in this book, which details his short and unlikely stint as a Hollywood correspondent turned war reporter who covered the opening days of the American military's advance into Iraq in 2003.
I enjoyed the book and all of its tales of preparing for war as well as tagging along for war as a reporter embedded with the U.S. Marines. But I had gotten quite engrossed in the front-line war stories (much as Ayres' editors had) by the time a bunch of "Get out of Iraq free" cards dropped into Ayres' lap, one after another. Seeing as how the book is entitled "War Reporting for Cowards" and there weren't that many pages left, I correctly figured that his exit from Iraq was near... and so was the end of the war stories I was hoping for more of.
It was still a good read, but if you're the kind of person who really gets into tales of war fighting, this book will seem to end in a rather anticlimactic fashion.
View all my reviews.