The next meeting of Bernardsville Library’s book discussion group, Memoirs and Coffee, will be held on Tuesday, April 26 at 10:30 am in the library’s Community Room. Pat Kennedy-Grant, Readers’ Services Coordinator for the library, will lead the discussion of The Good Soldiers (2009) by David Finkel. [The author will not be present.]
Finkel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post who was embedded with US Army soldiers in Battalion 2-16 during the Iraq “surge” in 2007 and 2008. His book is an memorable work of reportage in which he tells the story of the “good soldiers” of the Battalion—the heroes and the ruined—during the surge and when they returned home. His goal, he said, was to write an “on the ground” report, and Steve Coll, an author and writer for The New Yorker, said of the book, “This is the finest book yet written on platoon-level combat in the Iraq War. Unforgettable—raw, moving and rendered with literary control.” Another writer, Thomas E. Ricks wrote, “This is the best account I have read of the life of one unit in the Iraq War. It is closely observed, carefully recorded and beautifully written.”
Finkel is the National Enterprise Editor of The Washington Post. He won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his series of stories about US-funded democracy efforts in Yemen. He lives in Maryland.
There is no charge to attend the book discussion, and no sign-up is needed. For further information, call the library at 908-766-0118.
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