Fire
The events explored inFirefocus on "people confronting  situations that could easily destroy them," and as he demonstrated inThe  Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger is skilled at breaking such situations down  to their core elements. In this exciting book, he reports on raging forest fires  in the Western U.S, war zones in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the deadly diamond  trade in Sierra Leone, the plight of travelers kidnapped by guerrillas in  Kashmir, the last living whale harpooner on the Caribbean island of Bequia, and  the Greek-Turkish conflict on Cyprus. There is also a fascinating chapter on  John Colter (explorer, fur trader, and member of the Corps of Discovery led by  Lewis and Clark) in which he comments on the need for some to seek adventure as  a means of escape from our relatively safe modern world: "Life in modern society  is designed to eliminate as many unforeseen events as possible, and as inviting  as that seems, it leaves us hopelessly underutilized.... Threats to our safety  and comfort have been so completely wiped out that we have to go out of our way  to create them." Junger has a keen grasp on this mentality (in fact, he exhibits  it himself), and inFirehe clearly explains the fears and difficulties  involved in reporting on dangerous events from foreign countries: "You have two  weeks to understand a completely alien culture, find a story that no one has  heard of, and run it into the ground. It never feels even remotely possible. But  it is." And he has done it well in this thrilling book.--Shawn Carkonen--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.