Here are 100 books that Pity the Nation fans have personally recommended if you like
Pity the Nation.
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In 2003 I was travelling through Baghdad with US forces to report
on the Iraq war. Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion cracked through our Humvee
and a rush of hot debris swept past my face. The heavily armoured door warped inwards,
and the vehicle lifted off the ground. Soldiers were screaming in terror and
anger, clutching at bloody faces, arms, and legs. We’d been attacked by unknown
members of the Iraqi resistance. The sheer terror of that moment gave me a new
understanding of war – the sight, smells, sounds, and touch of combat – and a
desire to tell the stories of the young soldiers who get caught up in
it.
This is a detailed account of a secret military mission behind enemy lines during the first Gulf War and how a series of minor setbacks can quickly escalate into a full-blown disaster. I first read it years before I'd had any knowledge of a battlefield. I read it again after I'd been caught up in my own terrifying experience of combat and took away a new appreciation of the realities of war – how stress on the battlefield narrows the field of vision to minute details which distort what is really going on. It's a lesson about war, but also about life – even with all the planning and the training, it's almost impossible to control what happens in the heat of battle.
Sergeant Andy McNab recounts the story of the top secret mission that would reveal the secrets of the SAS to the world for the first time.
Their location: Iraq Their mission: to sever a vital enemy underground communication link, to find and destroy mobile Scud launchers Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero
When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They…
In 2003 I was travelling through Baghdad with US forces to report
on the Iraq war. Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion cracked through our Humvee
and a rush of hot debris swept past my face. The heavily armoured door warped inwards,
and the vehicle lifted off the ground. Soldiers were screaming in terror and
anger, clutching at bloody faces, arms, and legs. We’d been attacked by unknown
members of the Iraqi resistance. The sheer terror of that moment gave me a new
understanding of war – the sight, smells, sounds, and touch of combat – and a
desire to tell the stories of the young soldiers who get caught up in
it.
A
brilliantly intimate and personal account of a foot soldier’s tour of duty in Vietnam. This was a revelation to me while I was writing my own book showing that the microscopic
detail of a soldier’s individual concerns and anxieties was just as compelling
as the bird’s eye narrative of a battle.
A classic from the New York Times bestselling author of The Things They Carried
"One of the best, most disturbing, and most powerful books about the shame that was / is Vietnam." —Minneapolis Star and Tribune
Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone…
In 2003 I was travelling through Baghdad with US forces to report
on the Iraq war. Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion cracked through our Humvee
and a rush of hot debris swept past my face. The heavily armoured door warped inwards,
and the vehicle lifted off the ground. Soldiers were screaming in terror and
anger, clutching at bloody faces, arms, and legs. We’d been attacked by unknown
members of the Iraqi resistance. The sheer terror of that moment gave me a new
understanding of war – the sight, smells, sounds, and touch of combat – and a
desire to tell the stories of the young soldiers who get caught up in
it.
It
was this book that inspired me to write my book. It’s a powerful and gut-wrenching
description of soldiers being lost in the fog of war when a military operation
goes wrong and exposes the limits of what sophisticated hardware and weapon
technology can do to save the day.
Recounts a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, that resulted in the deaths of eighteen Americans and more than five hundred Somalis, examining the rationales behind the disastrous raid.
I’ve always been curious and passionate about how people overcame significant suffering in their lives. True stories of how people emerged stronger from traumatic events not only became an inspiration in my personal life but also my professional life as a therapist, where I became an agent of change. The ‘secret’ of these storytellers and their transformation became my focus. I only hope you find these stories as enjoyable as I did and also a challenge and an inspiration that makes a difference in your own life.
I loved this book because of the insight the author gives to his strategy of survival–kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured for over four years in the hands of Shi’ite militia.
Beautifully written, Keenan’s artistry thrilled me with its almost spiritual air and testimony to rare human resilience and its transformative power.
Brian Keenan's release from captivity was the first ray of hope for those hostages held in the Middle East. He describes the plight of his fellow hostages with first-hand knowledge. The language he uses reflects his past efforts as a poet in describing the pain and claustrophobia of imprisonment.
I am a thriller writer who was born and grew up in Kuwait during a period when the country was threatened with invasion by Iraq. My father was the Preventative Health Officer for the Kuwait Oil Company. At the end of 1960 Ian Fleming visited the country and they became close friends. At the time Britain depended on inside information to prepare for military Operation Vantage. The experiences I had of that time and of that relationship, even as a child, were crying out to be written about. Despite the Middle East being a hotspot for espionage during that period of the Cold War, there’s been relatively little written about it.
This book is the inside story of the gossip which came out of the St. George Hotel, a famous Beirut meeting place during the 1950s for journalists and travelers and a regular hot spot for spies. It reads like a Bond thriller and no doubt Ian Fleming downed several of his pink gins there before he travelled on to Kuwait. Many Western plots took shape in its bar, including the plan to restore the monarchy in Baghdad, an attempt to overthrow King Hussein, and the assassination of a Syrian president. The value to me of this book is its historical relevance. Destroyed in the civil war that raged through Lebanon, this account of the famous bar somehow defies the bombs and keeps it alive.
An insider's account of true espionage, intrigue and conspiracy in the post-war Middle East, which reads like a Bond-esque thriller. Spies, journalists, politicians, tycoons, would-be assassins and oil sheiks mingle in the luxurious St George Hotel bar, the cosmopolitan centre of Beirut. From the 1950's through to its destruction in 1975 due to civil war, the plots, deals, and stories that came out of this famous hotel and its beachside bar make fascinating reading, featuring famous names as Kim Philby, Miles Copeland, Wilbur Crane and James Russell Barracks. Many incidents which went on to shape Middle Eastern history are related…
Teresa Fava Thomas, Ph.D. is a professor of history at Fitchburg State University and author of American Arabists in theCold War Middle East, 1946-75: From Orientalism to Professionalismfor Anthem Press. I became interested in people who became area experts for the US State Department and how their study of hard languages like Arabic shaped their interactions with people in the region.
Ann Kerr and her husband Malcolm spent years in academic and diplomatic work across the region and especially in Cairo, Egypt and Beirut, Lebanon in critical times. Civil war and international conflict are described from the human perspective. The Kerr family dealt with great danger to help keep the American University of Beirut open amidst war; but paid a terrible price for their commitment to academic freedom.
Ann Kerr's is a personal account of an American family during the most tumultuous years of Beirut's political strife. It begins with the tragic assassination of her husband Malcolm Kerr, one of the most respected scholars of Middle East studies, in 1984, seventeen months after he became president of the American University of Beirut. She retraces in detail the events that brought them to the Middle East, and reaches back into her childhood to describe a lifelong affinity for Lebanon. For a young American woman caring for a family in Lebanon and Egypt, life was like nothing she had ever…
I love the Marines. After spending 12 years trying to join the Corps, with numerous rejections, I graduated from Parris Island at 31. As much as I love the Marines, I love reading and writing more. Reading and writing foster deep thought and wisdom in ways that coding, calculating, and puzzle-solving can’t. Having worked as a newspaper reporter, a military analyst, and a Marine, I couldn’t help but loathe the foolish ideas that made the wars on terror so frustrating. I have faith in the Marine Corps (“Semper Fidelis”), and I believe reading thoughtful books can make Marines wiser.
I started to love this book as soon as I realized I didn’t hate it. Initially, I thought Hammel had no point. He showed Marines doing this and that in Beirut. Sometimes they were hanging out, sometimes they were fighting. Then I realized Hammel had captured everything perfectly.
I didn’t understand what the Marines were doing in Beirut because they didn’t understand what they were doing there, and they didn’t understand what they were doing there because Washington didn’t know why it sent them there.
In that context, I grasped the tragedy of the deadly Beirut barracks bombing of Oct. 23, 1983. Nearly 250 Marines died because of an intellectual vacuum.
THE ROOT The Marines in Beirut August 1982-–February 1984 Eric Hammel. Facing northward out of a second-deck window, the lance corporal was hurled through the window and out into mid-air. He fell thirty feet to the ground and landed on his feet. He was not harmed until falling debris struck him on the head and shoulders. Nearly every other member of the recon platoon in his compartment was killed in the inferno. At 6:22 A.M. on October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck raced across the parking lot of the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon. Crashing through a chain-link gate…
Teresa Fava Thomas, Ph.D. is a professor of history at Fitchburg State University and author of American Arabists in theCold War Middle East, 1946-75: From Orientalism to Professionalismfor Anthem Press. I became interested in people who became area experts for the US State Department and how their study of hard languages like Arabic shaped their interactions with people in the region.
Journalist Terry Anderson was working for the Associated Press, as part of a small contingent of American and British reporters living and working during the war in Lebanon. Taken hostage in 1985 and held for seven years Anderson describes how he coped with long years of punishment, extremes of loneliness, and isolation, then ultimately reached freedom.
On March 16, 1985, Associated Press's Chief Middle East Correspondent, Terry Anderson, was kidnapped on the streets of Beirut. 2454 days - nearly seven years - later, he emerged into the light. "Den of Lions" is his memoir of that harrowing time; months of solitary confinement, beatings and daily humiliation. It is a story of personal courage, of brave and unflinching support for his fellow prisoners, but it is above all a love story - Madeleine Bassil, his fiancee, contributes her own chapters to their story, bringing up their child, Sulome, who never saw her father until she was six…
I’m a clairaudient medium and I’ve been a professional tarot card reader for 23 years. Delving into past lives is not only something I’m fascinated with but something I do for my spiritual business, as well. The most important part for my clients is not only knowing about their past lives but understanding how the struggles and lessons learned in those lives are applicable to their present life on this planet. History repeats itself is not just a cliche; I’ve always known how important it is to process and release these karmic teachings.
This is the very first book that I ever picked up regarding past lives back when I was 18 years old and wandering through a bookshop. It presents compelling evidence on the continuation of our souls through the accounts of children who vividly recall their past lives.
Reading their stories, I was filled with awe and a sense of wonder about the vastness of our existence beyond this lifetime. The book challenged my worldview, inviting me to question and explore the concept of reincarnation from a scientific perspective, and how this awareness could bring about healing and transformation in my present life.
For nearly seven decades psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson has been travelling the world, tracking reports of children who claim to have lived before. Spontaneously they will recall vivid details about complete strangers who died before they were born, people they say they once were. And when the memories are checked against the facts of real lives, they match to an astonishing degree. It took journalist Tom Shroder years to persuade Dr. Stevenson to allow him to accompany him on his field research, the first ever to have that privilege. From the hills of Beirut, Lebanon to the slums of northern…
In the 1950s, my mother and father left the red dirt of Oklahoma for the forests of Idaho to escape their families’ poverty. Instead of sharecropping, my father became a logger, but my aunt and her husband, a drilling rig roughneck, moved to the deserts of Saudi Arabia to work for Aramco and live in the American compound of Abqaiq. I remember the gifts they brought me: camel hide purses, Aladdin slippers. The Saudis, too, were experiencing rapid modernization and expanding wealth. I became fascinated by the conflict inherent in the sudden enmeshing of cultures and meteoric shift in power and privilege.
Because 20th Century Aramco was a closed company inside a closed culture inside a closed country, and because the laws of Shariaand strict corporate guidelines silenced the stories of women, I found it frustrating if not impossible to uncover narratives written by female Arab authors. Then I discovered Basrawi’s fascinating memoir about growing up in Dhahran. It provided riveting insight into the life of a teenage girl whose father was one of the first Saudi Muslim employees allowed to live inside the gated community. Basrawi vividly details coming of age in the middle of a white community and her eventual move to Beirut, where she endures the strife of the country’s civil war. Her account is rare, invaluable, and poignantly told—a reminder that it is literature that offers the greatest understanding of the immediate and lasting effects of colonial imperialism.
Fadia, a Saudi Arab, grew up in the strictly circumscribed and tailor-made 'desert Disneyland' of Aramco (the Arabian American Oil Company). This slice of modern, suburban, middle America was located in Dhahran, Aramco's administrative headquarters in Saudi Arabia, a theocratic Muslim kingdom run according to strict Wahabbi Shari'a law. Eventually, after only brief holidays abroad visiting relatives in colourful Arab cities like Medina, Damascus and Alexandria, Fadia moved to Beirut, the glitzy 'Paris of the Middle East', to attend high school. In Beirut she fell in love with a passionate and idealistic Lebanese journalist with whom she eloped against her…
