Grunt

Book 1 of 2017 is Grunt by Mary Roach.

This is a book I was trying to get through before the end of 2016 but December was disrupted and so this ends on the second day of the new year. Last year, I missed completing my 2016 Good Reads Reading Challenge with 30 or the 36 books finished. For 2017, I've set the challenge to 30 books which does not feel daunting.

Having never read Mary Roach before, I was expecting this to be a boring text book with some good statistics. Boy, was I wrong. She is a very entertaining writer and had regularly laughing between IEDs destroying penile function, disinterested sharks and polar bears obsessed with tampons.

I can't say I enjoyed every section. This was about war and that means that there are hard truths to read. Some chapters saw me put down the book and walk away for a few days to read fantasy in order to process the horrors of war. Roach does talk about everything with respect and an appropriate sense of humour. She had my respect on that.

This is both disturbing and enlightening. It is not for everyone.

Four special ops goldfish in a submarine out of five.

Should I read this? This is a hard one to answer. It may trigger people who have been in similar situations. It may be a bit to gory and detailed for some. I very much approached it as science and still cringed regularly. I'd say only read it if you can compartmentalise well.
What did I learn? Where to start: so much. That's why I would recommend reading this book. It made me look at war science in a very different way. It's not just nuclear science or signals processing. There is the people part. I guess I learnt that... these are real people dying for... something.