Goodbye, Darkness

Manchester at once illuminates and punctures the romanticism surrounding war. His account, ultimately, is devastating: the lives snuffed, the ecology obliterated, the minds irreversibly injured. His insights into human tribalism seem particularly applicable today, as we also wrangle within our country (U.S.) about who is friend or foe, who stands for right and who for evil. Not an easy read -- at times I scurried for the dictionary, and others I reread the same sentence over and over marveling, in a did-he-really-say-that sense, at how finely spun the words were. Highly recommended.