
The Junior Officers’ Reading Club
- Author Patrick Hennessey
- Narrator Patrick Hennessey
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Run Time 9 hours
- Format Audio
- Genre Memoirs, Military history: post-WW2 conflicts, Military institutions, Modern warfare, Specific wars and campaigns.
Listen to a sample
What to expect
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.
Critics Review
Must rank as the most accomplished work of military witness to emerge from British war-fighting since 1945
IndependentOutstanding . . . A classic of its kind
William Boyd, Books of the Year, HeraldAn 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
GuardianAll 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, ObserverThe military memoir of the moment
TimesA very fine book, a powerful dispatch from the front line … what impresses is the sheer candour and immediacy
Spectator
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