Dexter Filkins, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Before that, he worked for the Los Angeles Times, where he was chief of the paper's New Delhi bureau, and for The Miami Herald. In 2009, he was part of a team of Times reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for covering Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has received a George Polk Award and two Overseas Press Club awards. Most recently, he was a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. He lives in New York City.
Author and narrator Filkins offers this jaw-dropping account of modern warfare and the events that led up to and followed September 11, 2001. Told through firsthand accounts from his days as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Filkins follows the Taliban throughout the 1990s as well as the downfall of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Returning to the United States after 9/11, Filkins analyzes the nature of war and its modernity. Filkins's raw reading is drenched in experience and wisdom, making for an extraordinary listening experience. The stories are amazing, and Filkins displays his talent for storytelling. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, June 20). (Oct.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
The rise of the Taliban. The 9/11 attacks. Insurgency in Iraq. New York Times foreign correspondent Filkins gives us the big picture. With a 100,000-copy first printing; seven-city tour. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
"Stunning. . . . This unforgettable narrative represents . . . a
haunting spiritual witness that will make this volume a part of
this awful war's history." --Robert Stone, The New York
Times Book Review "Filkins makes us see, with almost
hallucinogenic immediacy, the true human meaning and consequences
of the "war on terror." --The New York Times "Unflinching. . .
. Filkins confronts the absurdity of war head-on. . . . This is a
page-turner, and one of the most astounding books yet written about
the war in Iraq." --Time "Thanks to one reporter's heroic act of
witness and brilliant recitation of what he saw, we can see the war
as it is, and for ourselves." --Los Angeles Times "Not since
Michael Herr in Dispatches . . . has a reporter written as
vividly about combat as Filkins does from Afghanistan and Iraq."
--USA Today 10 Best Books of 2008 "The Forever War .
. . achieves a gripping, raw immediacy." --The Boston
Globe's Year's Best Books "Splendid." --Washington Post Book
World Best Nonfiction of 2008 "Dexter Filkins's The Forever
War is the best piece of war journalism I've ever read. He
paints a portrait of war that is so nuanced, so filled with
absurdities and heartbreak and unexpected heroes and villains, that
it makes most of what we see and hear about Iraq and Afghanistan
seem shrill and two-dimensional by comparison. And yet, as tragic
as the events he describes are, the book manages to be a thing of
towering beauty." --Dave Eggers, Guardian Best Books of the
Year The Forever War is already a classic-it has the timeless feel
of all great war literature. Dexter Filkins's combination of
courage and sensitivity is so rare that books like his come along
only once every major war. This one is ours. --George Packer,
author of The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq "Dexter Filkins
is the preeminent war correspondent of my generation, fearless,
compassionate, and brutally honest. The Forever War is his
astonishing story. It is one of the best books about war that I
have ever read. It will stay with me forever." --Jeffrey Goldberg,
author of Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East
Divide "Dexter Filkins has seen the rise of the Taliban in
Afghanistan; he has stood in the ruins of the World Trade Center;
he has been in the heat of battle in Iraq; indeed, no one else has
been closer to the action than this courageous and thoughtful
observer. This is a sensational book in the best sense." --Lawrence
Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to
9/11
Stunning ... it is not facetious to speak of work like that of
Dexter Filkins as defining the 'culture' of a war...This
unforgettable narrative [represents] ... a haunting spiritual
witness that will make this volume a part of this awful war's
history. --Robert Stone, on the front page of The New York Times
Book Review "Dexter Filkins's The Forever War, brutally
intimate, compassionate, often poetic accounts of the battle
against Islamic fundamentalism, is destined to become a classic."
--Vanity Fair "Extraordinary. . . . if what Michael Herr
brought back from Vietnam in Dispatches was a sort of
Jackson Pollock-streaks of blood, trickles of dread, splattershot
of hard rock and harder drugs-The Forever War is like a pointillist
Seurat, a neo-Impressionist juxtaposition of spots of pure color
with black holes and open wounds." --John Leonard, Harper's "The
definitive-and heartbreakingly humanizing-report from the front
lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . . The Forever War
[is] about all wars, everywhere-and a book that will be read fifty
years from now." --Andrew Corsello, GQ "Dexter Filkins is one
of war writings' modern marvels, a writer of tremendous gifts and
appropriate grit to go where others will not." --Henry C. Jackson,
Associated Press "The best war reportage you are apt to read in a
lifetime." --Joseph C. Goulden, The Washington Times "Unflinching.
. . . Filkins confronts the absurdity of war head-on. . . . This is
a page-turner, and one of the most astounding books yet written
about the war in Iraq. . . . Filkins doesn't lecture, he just
reports, in great and perfect detail." --Gilbert Cruz, Time
"[Filkins is] an almost absurdly brave war correspondent . . . his
brilliant, sad, unique book . . . may be the most readable book
about Iraq. It's certainly one of the most artful. . . . We're the
better for it." --Hilary Frey, The New York Observer "Brilliant. .
. . The Forever War . . . deserves to be ranked as a classic . . .
and is likely to be regarded as the definitive account of how the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were experienced by those who actually
waged them. . . . Thanks to one reporter's heroic act of witness
and brilliant recitation of what he saw, we can see the war-as it
is, and for ourselves." --Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times "A
kaleidoscope of images and intensity. . . . It is written in finely
honed bursts of vibrant color that capture the peculiar culture of
the war. . . . It is a raw and riveting account . . . his honesty
in portraying the war implicitly exposes the hollowness of the
platitudes used in Washington to defend it." --Chris Hedges,
Philadelphia Inquirer "Splendid. . . . it shines as a work of
literature, illuminating the human cost of war." --Bing West, The
Washington Post "Rich with details both grotesque and sublime. . .
. The Forever War is a masterpiece of nuance." --Matthew B.
Stannard, The San Francisco Chronicle "Gut-wrenching and touching.
. . . Mr. Filkins's stories are those of a writer willing to endure
hardship, danger and anguish to paint an accurate picture of war
for the American public. . . . His prose is as blunt as it is
powerful." --Lee H. Hamilton, The New York Times "Filkins . . . is
a courageous reporter and an original writer. . . . The narrative
holds together through the power of his writing. . . . The
Forever War is an astonishingly good book." --Evan Wright, LA
Weekly "Addictive. . . . [Filkins is] a master of the moment, of
the concrete, of texture; where others try to explain, he wants you
to know what being there feels like. . . . I couldn't put this book
down." --Craig Seligman, Bloomberg "Dexter Filkins . . . is well on
his way to becoming the preeminent war reporter of this tumultuous
era. . . . His understated prose offers a stiletto-sharp account of
places he's gone and people he's met." --John Marshall, Seattle
Post Intelligencer "Wonderfully written and carefully researched. .
. . Filkins's meticulous attention to detail and his bravery . . .
[are] evident on every page . . . The Forever War . . .
serves as a powerful lesson in what it takes to cover the
complexities of war . . . [Dexter Filkins] has put himself in the
middle of this madness to deliver a stunning and illuminating
story." --Chuck Leddy, Christian Science Monitor "[Filkins is]
the real deal, a reporter's reporter . . . his brave and stunning
new book . . . pulses with prose so lean-whipsawing between
brutality and beauty-that it takes your breath away." --Paul
Grondahl, Times Union "A chilling and ethereal narrative of loss
and the promise of loss." --Jim Chiavelli, The Boston Globe
"Phenomenal. . . . The Forever War makes the war in Iraq so
real, so haunting, that you'll want to sleep with the book next to
your bed and read it in every spare moment until the last page. It
does what a great book about war, loss, politics, and sacrifice
should-it moves, shocks, entertains, educates, and inspires. The
Forever War is peerless-a classic." --Genvieve Long, The Epoch
Times
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