The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars

In the Iraqi desert (combat soundtrack of choice: Metallica and Prodigy), Patrick Hennessey and a handful of his military academy pals form the Junior Officers' Reading Club, staving off both the monotony and the pressures of army life by losing themselves in the dusty paperbacks on the transit-camp bookshelves. By the time Hennessey reaches Afghanistan and the rest of the club are scattered across the Middle East, they are no longer cheerfully overconfident young recruits, hungering for action and glory. Hennessey's searing account of his transformation from arrogant enlistee reared on war-movie clichés to fierce and seasoned commander captures how boys grow into men amid the frenetic, sometimes exhilarating violence, frequent boredom, and almost overwhelming responsibilities that are the realities of twenty-first-century combat.