The Men Who Stare At Goats & War Fix

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Summer reading continues...

I finished two books yesterday. The Men Who Stare At Goats was funny 50% of the time and frightening the other 50%. It's the (supposedly) true story about a US military division that's been around since the 70s exploring different avenues of psychological warfare. One of the programs believed men could be trained to be super soldiers; the fifth level of that program try to teach people how to stop a goats heart by simply staring at it. Apparently only one person ever got to that level. The rest of the book is equally odd - subliminal messages and psychic spying and the program's ties to fuck-ups like the Koresh Branch Davidians and Heaven's Gate. On the whole it was an entertaining read but sometimes the story seemed to lack cohesion. Other than that it's a fantastic summer read.

Buy The Men Who Stare At Goats

War Fix was gorgeous but I think it was the result of an inexperienced comic writer with an inexperienced comic artist. Layouts were confusing and the writing sometimes seemed detached from the incredible visuals. I got to read a sample of the follow-up book and that's looking much better already.

Buy War Fix

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Summer Reading
Read So Far:
The Men Who Stare at Goats
War Fix
The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Shortcomings
Cairo
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Up Next:
Incognegro
(I need to make a library run - out of books)

Labels: review