Places and Names

History

Ackerman, Elliot

Middle East

Penguin

'A superb, unique, and unforgettable story of war and death, fear and cruelty, above all the horrors and allure of combat' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'One of the most profound books I have ever read about the real nature of war and the abstract allure of the ideas and the bloodshed that fuels it' Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad An astonishing account of the nature of war from acclaimed novelist and decorated former US marine Elliot Ackerman
 In a refugee camp in southern Turkey, Elliot Ackerman sits across the table from Abu Hassar, who fought for Al Qaeda in Iraq and has murky connections to the Islamic State. At first, Ackerman pretends to have been a journalist during the Iraq War, but after he establishes a rapport with Abu Hassar, he reveals that in fact he was a Marine. The two men then compare their fighting experiences in the Middle East, discovering they had shadowed each other for some time: a realisation that brings them to a strange kind of intimacy.
Elliot Ackerman's extraordinary memoir explores the events that led him to come to this refugee camp and what, unable to forget his time in battle, he hoped to find there. Moving between his recent time on the ground as a journalist in Syria and his Marine deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, he creates a work of astonishing atmospheric pressure, one which blends the American experience with the perspectives and stories of the Arab world, and draws a line between them.
At once an intensely personal book about the terrible lure of combat and a brilliant meditation on the meaning of the past two decades of strife for the region and the world, Places and Names bids to take its place among our greatest books about modern war.

Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning

Americas

Allen Lane.

2054

From the widely acclaimed author of Waiting for Eden: a stirring, timely new novel that unfolds over the course of a single day in Istanbul: the story of an American woman attempting to leave behind her life in Turkey--to leave without her husband. Catherine has been married for many years to Murat, an influential Turkish real estate developer, and they have a young son together, William. But when she decides to leave her marriage and return home to the United States with William and her photographer lover, Murat determines to take a stand. He enlists the help of an American diplomat to prevent his wife and child from leaving the country--but, by inviting this scrutiny into their private lives, Murat becomes only further enmeshed in a web of deception and corruption. As the hidden architecture of these relationships is gradually exposed, we learn the true nature of a cast of struggling artists, wealthy businessmen, expats, spies, a child pulled in different directions by his parents, and, ultimately, a society in crisis. Riveting and unforgettably perceptive, Red Dress in Black and White is a novel of personal and political intrigue that casts light into the shadowy corners of a nation on the brink.

Red Dress in Black and White: A novel

Literature & Fiction

Literary

KNOPF

From a decorated Marine war veteran and National Book Award finalist, an astonishing reckoning with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. "War hath determined us..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost Toward the beginning of Places and Names, Elliot Ackerman sits in a refugee camp in southern Turkey, across the table from a man named Abu Hassar, who fought for al-Qaeda in Iraq and whose connections to the Islamic State are murky. At first, Ackerman pretends to have been a journalist during the Iraq War, but after establishing a rapport with Abu Hassar, he takes a risk by revealing to him that in fact he was a Marine special operation officer. Ackerman then draws the shape of the Euphrates River on a large piece of paper, and his one-time adversary quickly joins him in the game of filling in the map with the names and dates of places where they saw fighting during the war. They had shadowed each other for some time, it turned out, a realization that brought them to a strange kind of intimacy. The rest of Elliot Ackerman's extraordinary memoir is in a way an answer to the question of why he came to that refugee camp, and what he hoped to find there. By moving back and forth between his recent experiences on the ground as a journalist in Syria and its environs and his deeper past in Iraq and Afghanistan, he creates a work of remarkable atmospheric pressurization. Ackerman shares vivid and powerful stories of his own experiences in combat, culminating in the events of the Second Battle of Fallujah, the most intense urban combat for the Marines since Hue in Vietnam, where Ackerman's actions leading a rifle platoon saw him awarded the Silver Star. He weaves these stories into the latticework of a masterful larger reckoning with contemporary geopolitics through his vantage as a journalist in Istanbul and with the human extremes of both bravery and horror. At once an intensely personal story about the terrible lure of combat and a brilliant meditation on the larger meaning of the past two decades of strife for America, the region, and the world, Places and Names bids fair to take its place among our greatest books about modern war.

Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Penguin Press

From a decorated Marine war veteran and National Book Award finalist, an astonishing reckoning with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. "War hath determined us..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost Toward the beginning of Places and Names, Elliot Ackerman sits in a refugee camp in southern Turkey, across the table from a man named Abu Hassar, who fought for al-Qaeda in Iraq and whose connections to the Islamic State are murky. After establishing a rapport with Abu Hassar, Ackerman takes a risk by revealing to him that in fact he was a Marine special operation officer. Ackerman then draws the shape of the Euphrates River on a large piece of paper, and his one-time adversary quickly joins him in the game of filling in the map with the names and dates of places where they saw fighting during the war. As it turned out, they had shadowed each other for some time. The rest of Elliot Ackerman's extraordinary memoir is in a way an answer to the question of why he came to that camp, and what he hoped to find there. He shares vivid and powerful stories of his own experiences in combat, culminating in the events of the Second Battle of Fallujah, where his actions leading a rifle platoon saw him awarded the Silver Star. In that unforgettable final chapter, Ackerman weaves his chaotic memories of the battle with the formal language of his official recommendation for the medal. He builds these stories into the latticework of a larger reckoning with contemporary geopolitics and the human extremes of bravery and terror. At once an intensely personal story about the terrible lure of combat and a brilliant meditation on the past two decades of strife for America, the region, and the world, Places and Names bids fair to take its place among our greatest books about modern war.

Penguin Publishing Group

From the widely acclaimed author of Waiting for Eden: a stirring, timely new novel that unfolds in Istanbul over the course of a single day, when an American woman attempts to leave behind her life in Turkey--and her marriage.\nCatherine has been married for many years to Murat, an influential Turkish real estate developer, and they have a young son, William. But when she decides to return home to the United States with William and her lover, Peter, Murat takes a stand. He enlists the help of an American diplomat to prevent them from going--and, in so doing, becomes further enmeshed in a web of deception and corruption. As the hidden architecture of these relationships is gradually exposed, we move to the heart of intersecting worlds populated by struggling artists, wealthy businessmen, expats, spies. And, at the center, a child torn between his parents. Riveting and perceptive, Red Dress in Black and White is a novel of personal and political intrigue, a portrait of a nation on the brink.

Vintage

On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris \x27Wedge\x27 Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt\x27s destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America\x27s faith in its military\x27s strategic pre\-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand. So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co\-authored by an award\-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmanoeuvering America\x27s most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters \- Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians \- as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power. Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present\-day facts on the ground combined with the authors\x27 years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

Stavridis, Jim

Contemporary

Halcyon: A novel

A chilling novel set in an alternate version of America's recent past--about two self-made men confronting a world that seems to be moving on without them Virginia, 2004. Gore is entering his second term as president. Our narrator, Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the estate of renowned lawyer and World War II hero Robert Ableson. When news breaks that scientists funded by the Gore administration have discovered a cure for death, it calls into question everything Martin thought he understood about life, not least his work as a historian. Who is Ableson, really, and why did he draw Martin into his orbit? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil? Stretching from pivotal elections to intimate family secrets, from the Battle of Saipan to the toppling of Confederate monuments, Halcyon is a profound and probing novel that grapples with what history means, who is affected by it, and how the complexities of our shared future rest on the dual foundations of remembering and forgetting.

United States

A daring new novel, at once timely and timeless, set around an American family and the ever-shifting sands of history and memory and legacy that define them ("An expert juggling act." --Stephen Markley, New York Times Book Review) Virginia, 2004. Gore is entering his second term as president. Our narrator, Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the estate of renowned lawyer and World War II hero Robert Ableson. When news breaks that scientists funded by the Gore administration have discovered a cure for death, it calls into question everything Martin thought he understood about life, not least his work as a historian. Who is Ableson, really, and why did he draw Martin into his orbit? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stretching from pivotal elections to intimate family secrets, from the Battle of Saipan to the toppling of Confederate monuments, Halcyon is a profound and probing novel that grapples with what history means, who is affected by it, and how the complexities of our shared future rest on the dual foundations of remembering and forgetting.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ackerman, Elliot. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ackerman, Elliot

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ackerman, Elliot. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Places and Names

Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning

2054

Red Dress in Black and White: A novel

Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning

Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning

Red Dress in Black and White: A novel

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

Halcyon: A novel

Halcyon: A novel