Books about Baghdad from Amazon.com

In From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava, Jay Kopelman tells a story that is both tender and thought-provoking--candidly portraying the ugly conditions in wartime Iraq, while also describing his (and his fellow Marines') growing attachment to a scruffy stray puppy. Here Jay Kopelman answers a few questions about his aspirations as a writer, and the effect his book has had on readers.

Questions for Jay Kopelman

Amazon.com: Before you met Lava and had this experience smuggling him out of Iraq, did you ever have ambitions to write a book?

Jay Kopelman: Yes, I'd considered writing a book previously and have started--but not finished--a novel. Not surprisingly, it's a military murder mystery. And I'm still hoping to get it published. I've also been offered a deal by my publisher to write another book. So I guess I'm now officially an author.

Amazon.com: How has the military responded to it given that you broke a number of rules during your adventure with Lava?

Jay Kopelman: I've actually not had any real feedback from the military establishment. In fact, mostly I only get the good-natured ribbing from my contemporaries about how much money I'll make or about who will play me in the movie. When the story first broke a year and a half ago, one of the generals jokingly asked me for an autograph, and I've given the previous commanding general for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force a signed galley. So, thus far, there's been nothing "official" to which I've had to respond. We'll see what happens now that the book is released and there's going to be a media blitz surrounding the book. What you have to remember, though, is that I really didn't use military assets to get Lava home. Nor did I ever endanger anyone in the military while doing so.

Amazon.com: In the book, you say that you would like it if it can bring hope to people who've lost loved ones in Iraq by showing them how something positive can come out of a brutal situation. Have you heard from people that your book has made them feel better?

Jay Kopelman: I've not yet heard from anyone who's lost a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I have heard from a counselor who works with the returning Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, who said she finds the story so very positive and helpful. She's planning to come to the book signing there. I also got an e-mail from a Marine who said that while her unit was in Iraq, they adopted a puppy and tried to bring it home, but he was ultimately put down. She says that the Marines "remember how Charlie the dog helped us. Charlie will always be loved. During a time when we were far from home that dog made us smile." So, I suppose Lava's story does help people remember and gives them hope. I've also heard from people who appreciate my candor describing the conditions in Iraq.

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Price: $5.43 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Jack and Annie travel back in time to a desert in the Middle East at the behest of Merlin who has given them a rhyme to help on their mission There they meet a Bedouin tribe and learn about the way that they live. From camel rides and oases to ancient writings and dangerous sandstorms, here’s another Magic Tree House filled with all the mystery, history, magic, and old-fashioned adventure that kids love to read about.


From the Hardcover edition..
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In his most provocative and caustically funny book yet, Greg Palast, author of the national bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, once again gives us the straight scoop on the stories that Big Media won’t report. Digging up reams of documents marked “secret” and “confidential,” Palast provides the latest lowdown on Bush’s secret plans to seize Iraq’s oil, the fix planned for the 2008 election, who drowned New Orleans, and the horror and the humor of the War on Terror. With diligent detective work, moral outrage, and a keen sense of the absurd, Palast takes on the “armed and dangerous clowns that rule us” as only he can..
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At age twenty-five, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a twenty-first-century reporter -- cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, trans- lators. In startling detail, he describes the chaos, the violence, the never-ending threats of bomb and mortar attacks, the front lines that can be a half mile from the Green Zone, that can be anywhere. This is a new kind of war: private security companies follow their own rules or lack thereof; soldiers in combat get instant messages from their girlfriends and families; members of the Louisiana National Guard watch Katrina's decimation of their city on a TV in the barracks.

Back in New York, Hastings had fallen in love with Andi Parhamovich, a young idealist who worked for Air America. A year into their courtship, Andi followed Michael to Iraq, taking a job with the National Democratic Institute. Their war-zone romance is another window into life in Baghdad. They call each other pet names; they make plans for the future; they fight, usually because each is fearful for the other's safety; and they try to figure out how to get together, when it means putting bodyguards and drivers in jeopardy.Then Andi goes on a dangerous mission for her new employer -- a meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters that ends in catastrophe.

Searing, unflinching, and revelatory, I Lost My Love in Baghdad is both a raw, brave, brilliantly observed account of the war and a heartbreaking story of one life lost to it..
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Horwitz has the touch, the ability to astutely capture the ludicrous essence of an experience while filling in all the pertinent socio-historic details. He chews qat with the Yemenis, plays soccer with the Sudanese Dinka refugees and listens to an endless refrain of "You are the perfume of Iraq, oh Saddam" in Baghdad. Horwitz' eye and wit are equally sharp, and his book is an exceptionally good read..
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In the award-winning series Y: THE LAST MAN and EX MACHINA (one of Entertainment Weeklys 2005 Ten Best Fiction titles), writer Brian K. Vaughan demonstrates an understanding of the cost of survival and the political nuances of the modern world. In this provocative, acclaimed graphic novelavailable for the first time in trade paperbackVaughan examines life on the streets of war-torn Iraq.In the spring of 2003, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid.Lost and confused, hungry but free, the four lions roamed the decimated streets of Baghdad in a desperate struggle to survive.In documenting the plight of the lions, PRIDE OF BAGHDAD raises questions about the true meaning of liberationcan it be given, or is it earned only through self-determination and sacrifice?And in the end, is it truly better to die free than to live life in captivity?Based on a true story, Vaughan and artist Niko Henrichon open a unique and heartbreaking window on the nature of life during wartime, illuminating this struggle as only the graphic novel can..
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A raid on a Toronto mosque reveals a hard link to a mysterious figure known only as Scimitar. He's a legend believed to be at the center of an international network of violent jihadist and criminal enterprises stretching across the Middle East and southwest Asia—created after the collapse of a brutal dictatorial regime in Iraq.

From the opium dens of Hong Kong to the dark corners of eastern Europe, and war-torn Baghdad itself, Mack Bolan and two of Stony Man's finest are targeting an organized empire that runs everything from heroin traffic to global jihad. Yet Scimitar remains a mystery within an enigma; a brilliant, faceless opponent whose true identity will force Bolan into a personal confrontation for justice—and righteous retribution..
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"Graduating from college with a degree in Middle East studies, Rossmiller joined the Defense Department's Intelligence Agency in 2004 and soon volunteered to join a DIA unit in Iraq. He vividly recounts his six-month tour—the physical misery of the environment and the frustrations of feeling his work rarely made a difference. Good intelligence, he explains, begins with people on the spot (in this case usually Iraqis), who take risks but supply information that is often fragmented, out-of-date and even self-serving or false. Analysts, such as the author, tease out useful data and deliver it quickly to fighting men. Hobbled by clueless superiors and their turf wars, as well as ignorance of Iraqi culture, DIA units, including Rossmiller's, witnessed American forces repeatedly acting on poor or outdated intelligence. They killed and arrested plenty of genuine insurgents but also killed, arrested and infuriated many innocent Iraqis, which crippled their efforts. Back in Washington, Rossmiller discovered the agency under pressure to provide good news for the Bush administration. Superiors regularly rejected his analyses of Iraqi politics as “too pessimistic.” If repeated rewrites lacked an upbeat conclusion, superiors inserted one. That his predictions turned out to be correct made no difference. This intense, partisan arm-twisting devastated morale, resulting in an exodus of agency experts, including the author. Rossmiller gives a lively insider's view of the petty and not-so-petty politics that affect the intelligence our leaders receive in their efforts to pacify Iraq; it is not a pretty picture."
-Publishers Weekly


After 9/11, billions of dollars were spent to overhaul America’s dysfunctional intelligence services, which were mired in bureaucracy, turf wars, and dated technology. But in this astonishing new book, A. J. Rossmiller, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst honored for his efforts here and in Iraq, reveals firsthand evidence that the intelligence system remains in disrepair. Still Broken is a blistering account of the ideology and incompetence that cripple our efforts to confront our enemies and fight our wars.

Like many Americans, Rossmiller was moved to action by the attacks on 9/11. Freshly graduated from Middlebury College, he went to work for the U.S. government in 2004. But his enthusiasm slowly turned to disillusion as he began to fulfill his duties for DIA, the spy arm of the Department of Defense. There he found the Cold War and 9/11 generations at odds, the cause of fighting terrorism superseded by the need to contain a dismally managed war in Iraq, the Bush administration widely mocked and distrusted, and the intelligence process crippled from top to bottom.

Rather than give up, Rossmiller instead went further, volunteering to go to Iraq to aid the troops on the ground, contribute to tactical intelligence, and, he hoped, help bring about an end to a fatally mismanaged war. For six months in that besieged country, he worked for the Direct Action Cell, the “track ’em and whack ’em” unit devoted to unmasking and targeting insurgents. He learned that, to put it mildly,

the intelligence process bears no resemblance to the streamlined, well-resourced, and timely operation in a James Bond or Jason Bourne movie. He also experienced the disastrous counterterrorism and detainee strategies for which mass imprisonment–with little interest in guilt or innocence–is standard operating procedure.

Back at the Pentagon as a strategic issues expert in the Office of Iraq Analysis, Rossmiller saw the administration’s heavy hand in determining how information is processed. In a dysfunctional office filled with outsize personalities and the constant drone of Fox News, he filed reports on the ever-worsening situation in Iraq. These assessments, ultimately proven accurate, were consistently rejected as “too pessimistic” and “off message” and repeatedly changed to be more in line with delusional White House projections.

Written with passion, intensity, and self-deprecating humor, Still Broken is a riveting and sobering portrait of Bush-era intelligence failures and manipulations, laid out by someone who witnessed them up close and personal. It also offers a sincere, thoughtful prescription for healing the system so that a new and motivated generation won’t disengage completely from its government..
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In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.

In a voice in turn eloquent, angry, reflective and darkly comic, Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city-of neighbors whose homes are raided by US troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. At times, the tragic blends into the absurd, as she tells of her family jumping out of bed to wash clothes and send e-mails in the middle of the night when the electricity is briefly restored, or of their quest to bury an elderly aunt when the mosques are all overbooked for wakes and the cemeteries are all full. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman's perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.

Interspersed with these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend's analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Ghraib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush's State of the Union speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic postwar society.

With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is widely recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media. The book version of this blog will have "value-added" features: an introduction and timeline of events by veteran journalist James Ridgeway, excerpts from Riverbend's links and an epilogue by Riverbend herself.

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