Probably the biggest influence of The Men Who Stare at Goats came via my decision to feature a goat in a particularly bizarre and gruesome chapter of We Take Care of Our Own.
On Killing is a hefty one — my paperback edition comes in at nearly 350 pages — and yet it’s extremely readable, with mind-blowing insights every few pages.
There’s nothing I find more fascinating in a book or movie or whatever than a group of people discussing the making or breaking of human lives in purely practical terms.
The pitfalls of privatizating the military is a major theme of my novel. Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army bestowed on me invaluable insight in my development of that theme.
The essays of Where To Invade Next create an incomplete yet compelling portrait of the hysteria that injected itself into American foreign policy in the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks.
Some works dazzle you from one moment to the next while some works quietly sink in, infiltrating the reader’s psyche without their noticing.
What I most remember about Let There Be Light is the African American soldier who can’t stop crying, due to what he describes as “nostalgia.”
“Divide! Divide! Divide! Let the unified few keep the quarreling majority from sharing in what is rightfully everyone’s!”
What Was Asked of Us is astounding and brutal, as the stories of U.S. soldiers and Marines pile up to create this kaleidoscope of chaos and horror.