The Junior Officers' Reading Club
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  • Published: 27 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141963945
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

The Junior Officers' Reading Club

Killing Time and Fighting Wars

Formats & editions
EBook
2 Aug 2010
Audiobook
27 May 2010
Paperback
9 Jul 2010
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'The most accomplished work of military witness to emerge from British war-fighting since 1945' Boyd Tonkin

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Patrick Hennessey's compelling account of life as a British soldier, The Junior Officers' Reading Club, read with charm and wit by the author himself.

Patrick Hennessey is a graduate in his 20s. He reads Graham Greene, listens to early-90s house on his iPod and watches Vietnam movies. He has also, as an officer in the Grenadier Guards, fought in some of the most violent combat the British army has seen in a generation.

This is the story of how a modern soldier is made, from the testosterone-heavy breeding ground of Sandhurst to the nightmare of Iraq and Afghanistan. Showing war in all its terror, boredom and exhilaration, The Junior Officers' Reading Club is already being hailed as a modern classic.
  • Published: 27 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141963945
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
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About the author

Patrick Hennessey

Patrick Hennessey was born in 1982 and educated at Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read English. He joined the Army in January 2004, undertaking officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where he was awarded the Queen's Medal and commissioned into The Grenadier Guards. He served as a Platoon Commander and later Company Operations Officer from the end of 2004 to early 2009 in the Balkans, Africa, South East Asia and the Falkland Islands and on operational tours to Iraq in 2006 and Afghanistan in 2007, where he became the youngest Captain in the Army and was commended for gallantry. Patrick is currently studying to become a barrister and hopes to specialize in conflict and international humanitarian law.

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Praise for The Junior Officers' Reading Club

A very fine book, a powerful dispatch from the front line ... what impresses is the sheer candour and immediacy

Spectator

The military memoir of the moment

Times

An extraordinary memoir . . . Hennessey has a reporter's eye for detail and a soldier's nose for bullshitAn extraordinary memoir . . . Hennessey has a reporter's eye for detail and a soldier's nose for bullshit

Guardian

All politicians need to read honest accounts of war - at no time more than now - and Patrick Hennessey's The Junior Officers' Reading Club is one of the very best

David Cameron, Books of the Year, Observer

Must rank as the most accomplished work of military witness to emerge from British war-fighting since 1945

Independent

Outstanding . . . A classic of its kind

William Boyd, Books of the Year, Herald