Dexter Filkins' Long War

Dexter Filkins is an outstanding reporter and feature writer for the New York Times, who has filed dispatches from such holiday destinations as Fallujah (Second Siege of), the tribal badlands of Waziristan, and almost anywhere in the Middle East where bombs go off. His book, The Forever War - a collection of novelistic reportage from his various assignments over the past decade - was among the best nonfiction I have ever read. He has the keenest eye for detail.

Anyway, he frequently writes long features for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and his latest, Stanley McChrystal's Long War, is an epic. It tells the story of the ascetic warrior-bibliophile at the heart of America's campaign to turn Afghanistan around: his challenges, strategy, and likely prospects of success.

Required reading.

New Yorker on a hot streak

This piece about the gang-ruled favelas of Rio is breathtaking both for the cast-iron balls of its writer - Jon Lee Anderson - and its insights. It confirms what I've thought for a while: the New Yorker is on a hot streak.

It also got me wondering. Why didn't Chicago and Madrid simply print a copy of the article for every IOC member? Rio wouldn't have made it past the first vote.