Friday, October 2, 2009

Fun Friday Finds!

I recently discovered this great meme by MizB at Should be Reading, "What great books did you hear about / discover this past week? Share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!"
I happened to find out about a very interesting book this week and I am thrilled to share it with you!

This book is nonfiction. My husband read about it while reading, The GOD Delusion by Richard Dawkins (which I see he has put on my TBR pile!) and told me about it. We looked it up mostly because we loved the title but we were also intrigued by the description in Dawkins' book. We discovered that it's been made into a movie with George Clooney, due out this fall.


The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson. The title cracks you up, right? I get a weird picture in my head of a dumb looking (A redundancy?!) bleating goat and an equally dumb looking guy in a flannel shirt and denim overalls sitting on a bale of hay, chewing on a long piece of hay, and staring at a goat as if it has the answers to the universe or maybe just what's for dinner! LOL Yep, weird, I know. And nothing to do with the book!


The blurb about the book: In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. 'The men who stare at goats' reveals extraordinary - and very nutty - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's War on Terror.

With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades, and sees how it is alive today within US Homeland Security and post-war Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners-of-war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have 100 de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the US Military associated with the mysterious mass-suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? 'The men who stare at goats' answers these, and many more, questions.
I love the X-Files and The Twilight Zone so this book sounds so interesting to me especially because it's nonfiction. And the movie has George Clooney, need I say more?! lol

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry about that, signed on as the wrong person :blush:

    I could totally see the farmer and the goat staring into each others eyes, waiting for the other to blink!

    here's my Friday Finds

    ReplyDelete
  3. The goat book sounds really interesting!
    I just finished reading BEST FRIENDS FOREVER by Jennifer Weiner. The title makes it sound like real fluff, but it's not; it is, in fact, quite good.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Haha, what a strange name! I pictured something similar to what you described.lol

    ReplyDelete
  5. That goat book definitely sounds interesting to me. Thanks for sharing these!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The God Delusion is good! I've read it, but not reviewed it yet. The Men Who Stare at Goats, well that just sounds fantastically funny! LOL I'm intrigued!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've heard of the upcoming movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, but I hadn't heard about the book. I finally figured out what the movie was about not too long ago and have to say I'm intrigued. I'll have to look into the book now too. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Amy!

    ReplyDelete