A non-fiction account from a WSJ correspondent

Usually, our blog content is of a lighter flavor, but this post is just the opposite.  In a release from the Wall Street Journal yesterday, we read that their Iraqi correspondent, Farnaz Fassihi, has taken the experiences she has gathered up over two years of covering the war in Iraq and has  published it all in her new book entitled "Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq."

Fassihi’s coverage of the war in Iraq is her most recognizable piece to date, but don’t let that fool you, critics have said only positive things about this, her non-fiction debut.

In one of Farnaz Fassihi’s emails to family, while still in Iraq she wrote, “Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons.  I am house bound.  I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview.  I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets.  I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in anything but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling.”  If Fassihi’s novel is as eye opening and telling as the email excerpt above, the critics must be right – this is a must read.