For the past two years I have been living between a city centre and an industrial estate. The closest roads are main arteries to and from the city, and the biggest open spaces around are the shopping centre and the middle of the canal. It's fair to say that there has been very little nature to relax and inspire me. In these two years, I have made a personal discovery: I need nature to relax me. And since I have such a lack of green pastures and long walks in the fresh air nearby (the canal hardly counts - a single dirt track for the "riverside walk" leading to a built up shopping area in the docks) I have taken desperate measures to get my fix of plants and trees: I have turned to nature writing.
Showing posts with label Non-Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Non-Fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 June 2022
Thursday, 3 July 2014
Book Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
Okay, so it's been two days.
And I've already finished another book.
To be fair, Jon Ronson's writing is very readable. The topics are often absurd, seemingly larger-than-life, but that's the sort of thing he becomes involved in. My first experience of his writing was with The Psychopath Test which was an interesting look at psychopathy and the traits which give it away, looking less at the condition itself (these are, again, more of those "popular science" books I love) and more at how it affects people and how people treat it. Likewise, this look at the US military and its more... shall we say, "unusual" tactics in warfare, is approached in typical Jon-Ronson-style from the strange angle of its PsyOps division, the shady area of army intelligence concerned with psychic viewing, new age thinking and, as the title of the book suggests, staring at goats. Yep, this is The Men Who Stare at Goats.
And I've already finished another book.
To be fair, Jon Ronson's writing is very readable. The topics are often absurd, seemingly larger-than-life, but that's the sort of thing he becomes involved in. My first experience of his writing was with The Psychopath Test which was an interesting look at psychopathy and the traits which give it away, looking less at the condition itself (these are, again, more of those "popular science" books I love) and more at how it affects people and how people treat it. Likewise, this look at the US military and its more... shall we say, "unusual" tactics in warfare, is approached in typical Jon-Ronson-style from the strange angle of its PsyOps division, the shady area of army intelligence concerned with psychic viewing, new age thinking and, as the title of the book suggests, staring at goats. Yep, this is The Men Who Stare at Goats.
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