MY BOOK DIARY: August, September & October 2008

{BOOK DIARY}

I had intended to post a little about the books I’m reading, but as you may have noticed I haven’t so far ;-P I’m far from being an avid reader, but (amazingly enough) I have read a few books since moving my blog here, so it’s high time I told you about them *grin* The only problem is that I think most people are going to find my reading list incredibly boring - perhaps that’s why it’s taken me such a long time to post anything… Suffice to say that since August I’ve been reading only two kinds of books really - ones about the war on terror and IT books.

The Interrogator’s War - Inside The Secret War Against Al Qaeda

by Chris Mackey

Language: English
Read: August 2008

What It’s About
It’s a real account of an American soldier, who worked as an interrogator in two military prisons in Afghanistan.

My Impressions
It’s very well written and makes for a terrific read. I read it in about 3 days or so despite it being a huge book.
At the beginning he takes you through the training they receive as military interrogators - what they’re not allowed to do (Geneva convention) and what they are allowed to do (16 approaches to interrogating). The author also went through some interrogation training at the British military, so he takes you through how the approaches differ. He’s rather more complimentary of the British system since the American training sort of assumed that the prisoner would break fast, which is almost never the case with high value prisoners. Also the British system prepared them for “layers of truth and lies” rather than the black and white view that either the prisoner is lying or telling the truth.
After that he writes about the realities of the prisons in Afghanistan. He describes his fellow interrogators and soldiers, as well as the stories of the prisoners he interrogates. He also writes about the stupid policies in place which often required them to send people who they knew to be innocent to Guantanamo. And about how little the CIA cooperates with the military (I never realized they worked so separately).
Abu Ghraib and other torture issues (like the CIA’s use of water-boarding) loom over the book, but don’t have a large presence. The author was deployed very early on in the war and he admits that the longer they were there, the more likely they were to bend the rules, but he was never witness to abuse such as that of Abu Ghraib. He admits to using sleep deprivation on certain prisoners and of course threats have always been part of the interrogation process, but he says that for the time he was there, there was never any violence used against prisoners. I tend to believe him - the account as a whole seems honest and very even handed.

Recommended?
Yes, very much so :) It reads as well as a novel and there’s some fascinating stories there. It’s very informative also.

See No Evil

by Robert Baer

Language: English
Read: September 2008

What It’s About
A CIA agent’s account of what sort of stuff the CIA has been meddling with in the Middle East since about the 1980s.

My Impressions
I found this one a bit difficult. It took me ages to read, even though there were points where I was hooked. Perhaps I’m a bit too young for it - many of the events and people mentioned were totally unknown to me and the glossary was insufficient. I was often a bit lost or confused about what was happening precisely.
Another thing that probably made the book difficult is that I found it hard to like or entirely trust the author. I guess one needs a certain kind of mind to be able to do this sort of work, but it was difficult for me to fully accept him, even if I gradually did warm up to him a little.
He is very critical of how the CIA works and in some ways it was actually a great way to affirm what I read about the CIA in the previous book, but this time getting a look from the inside.
The main point he makes is that oil has been a major issue in Washington for ages now and there is a lot of lobbying in the oil industry - this has detrimental effects on intelligence also.

Recommended?
Not really. I mean it’s ok, but I think you’d have to be really into the topic to have an enjoyable read of it.

Will They Ever Trust Us Again?

by Michael Moore

Language: English
Read: October 2008

What It’s About
It’s a collection of e-mails that Michael Moore has received from soldiers, veterans and their families (all of them criticizing the Bush administration of course).

My Impressions
There are all kinds of letters in there - some eloquent, some very emotional, some from Democrats, some from Republicans…
I got through it quite fast (it’s not a long book), but I found it a little repetitive after a while. The most interesting letters I felt were from the soldiers stationed in Iraq - particularly the ones that were not only questioning the point of the war in Iraq itself, but very matter of factly stating what had been done wrong on the ground and how the war could have been finished much sooner.
The ones from families were also quite eye opening - they get regular information from their loved ones in the war and can connect those things up with what’s happening on the news, in life generally etc. and often come up with some very valuable observations.

Recommended?
Judge for yourself :) It’s just letters, none of Michael Moore’s usual rhetoric. If you want to read some letters from soldiers then you’ll probably be happy with this book :)

Beginning Relational Data Modeling

by Sharon Allen
Language: Polish
Read: October 2008

What It’s About
It’s about modelling data, surprisingly enough ;)

My Impressions
I found it a little difficult, which may have been due to the Polish translation.
I mainly read it to try to grasp the difference between conceptual, logical and physical diagrams and I think I’ve finally more or less got it, so I guess it does the job it’s supposed to :)

Recommended?
You won’t find many books on this topic, so for that I would recommend it, but I don’t think it’s that amazing as a book.

PostgreSQL

by Korry Douglas

Language: English
Read: August 2008

What It’s About
The amazing thing about IT books is that the title usually says it all - the book is about PostgreSQL ;) PostgreSQL is a very cool open source database system.

My Impressions
It’s a sort of PostgreSQL bible and it’s written very well. I’m certainly going to use this as a reference book for a long time hopefully :)

Recommended?
For anybody who expects to be using PostgreSQL - yes! I’m pretty sure this is one of the best books on PostgreSQL on the market - I have looked at a few.

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