New Stories

South Africa: The downside of banning mercenaries

Southern Africa: Who will pay for peacekeeping?

Go Buy This Book

Well. It just won the gold medal of book reviews: cover of NYT Sunday Review.

First review is very good from Chicago Tribune.

I would call this a shameless plug for a good friend except that the book is so damn good that I would urge you to read it no matter who wrote it. So I'm not shilling; I'm promoting literature. This is pal Jonny's first novel, just released, and it is getting a lot of attention already, and not just from people stranded in airports. If you took the state of airline travel as a metaphor for the state of our republic, then this book is a uniquely positioned, very personal letter to the big us - a toast to the great We in our human conditions, our desperate struggles with ourselves and each other and the brilliance of the moments when sunlight pierces the confusion. During my own airport nightmares, I have bleakly thought: All these years of evolution, Western civilization and miraculous creativity and this is what we end up with - fluorescent lights and cancelled flights. A few months ago, I started the book at 11 p.m. and finished it at 3 a.m. During those hours, I was angry, teary, uncomfortable and laughing out loud - a rare gift from a novel. The story is vivid, rugged and toughly compassionate. I found myself caring for a character who I wasn't sure deserved it which made me face, again, one of life's constant queries: How wounded and how big is your heart and what are you doing with it?

Read the book. Just up, this is the book's official Web site.

You can read a description of the story and buy it here.

Whither Journals?

I'm reduced to (not very) public shaming: Some of you out there have journals that were going to be a collaborative correspondence between us. Only one person has sent one and I savaged it with art and nonsense and mailed it back. I have a big stack of supplies ready to use for this purpose but no journals.

You know who you are. Send 'em.

It's Not Just a South African Problem

Related to the story I wrote about mining pollution is a story detailing the same concerns about toxic water threatening the town of Leadville, Colorado:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28leadville.html

Story

A short article of mine about a rum drink from Madagascar is in the March issue of Saveur. If nothing else, you'll learn a lot about butter.

Trout in South Africa

Story from Afghanistan

This article and these photos, by two extraordinarily brave and talented women, are the most powerful story I've seen about what soldiers face in Afghanistan:

Battle Company Is Out There