Road Work: Among Tyrants, Heroes, Rogues, and Beasts

By Mark Bowden

Book Overview

Anyone who has read Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down or Killing Pablo knows that he is capable of putting us in the heat of a story in a way few writers can. Road Work gathers the best of his award-winning writing, from his breakout stories for the Philadelphia Inquirer to his influential pieces in the Atlantic on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether traveling to Zambia, where a team of antipoachers fights to save the black rhino, to Guant namo Bay to expose the controversial ways America is fighting its war on terror, or to a small town in Rhode Island to penetrate the largest cocaine ring in history, Bowden takes us down rough roads previously off limits--and gives us another gripping read.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143036734
• ISBN13: 9780143036739
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 467 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

great compilation of his newspaper work

If you like Mark Bowden you'll enjoy this book. Maybe not love it but enjoy it. He started as a sport writer so many of the included subjects are naturally about sports. Since I lost interest in sports a long time ago those arent too interesting to me but still well written. I'd get his other books first and make this your last choice for a Bowden "fix".

Great writer

Mark Bowden has a knack of putting you in the middle of the action. At times it feels like you are actually there in that part of history experiencing everything that all the personnel are going through. He gives you all aspects of the experience from both the good and bad guys perspective.

Heavily recommended

Due to the fact it is a collection of pieces on various subjects, it is difficult to characterize. Nevertheless, it is heavily rcommended, simply due to the author. As far as I'm concerned, Mark Bowden is one of the greatest living journalists. Good writing that's generally free from ideology, and filled with blunt honesty.

Fantastic...

I love these anthology works -- it sure beats hunting down all the pieces online or whatever. The range of subjects is impressive. Saddam... bombing taliban... corrupt cops on the take... Ok... let me confess -- I didn't read every single story in the book. (Sports, not really my thing.) That aside, this book is rad.

Masterful storytelling.

Mark Bowden is an anachronism, a throwback to the glories of earlier decades when skilled writers used magazine pages to tell real stories. How different from the infotainment and self-aggrandizing puff-pieces so common today. Bowden's stories were originally written for The Philadelphia Inquirer magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone and others. His subjects are as diverse as the "Dark Art Of Interrogation" to a study of Norman Mailer, nineteens stories in all and every one fascinating. A wonderful excursion through the eyes of a man who can not only see, but can write as well. Jerry