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.

Reviews

"An extraordinary memoir . . . Hennessey has a reporter’s eye for detail and a soldier’s nose for bullshit" (Guardian)
"Must rank as the most accomplished work of military witness to emerge from British war-fighting since 1945" (Independent)
"Remarkable . . . conveys vividly what it’s like to experience combat" (Jeremy Paxman, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year)
"Outstanding . . . A classic of its kind" (William Boyd, Sunday Herald, Books of the Year)
"Harrowing and frequently funny . . . sparkles with wit, wisdom and boyish glee . . . His generation owns the war" (Times)
"Soldiers who can write are as rare as writers who can strip down a machinegun in 40 seconds, but Patrick Hennessey is one of the few" (Sunday Times)
"A very fine book, a powerful dispatch from the front line … what impresses is the sheer candour and immediacy" (Spectator)
"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, Observer, Books of the Year)
"A compelling read . . . Hennessey’s book ought to be read by all officers that have yet to experience combat . . . He has written an important portrait of contemporary warfare and the nature of battle – a portrait that can claim a line of descent from Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" (Will Pike, British Army Review )

Author Biography

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.