J is well read.

J is a Canadian reserve soldier from Ottawa who has done two tours in Afghanistan. While he was away, he spent much of his downtime reading.

What kind of a reader are you?
I am a binge reader. At certain points in my life I’ll spend a three to six month period reading everything I can get my hands on, or trying to clear the pile of books I had collected in one of my dry spells. In the dry spells, I might go a year without reading anything other than the newspaper.

How many books would you guess you read while on tour in Afghanistan?
I can tell you exactly how many books I read. On my first tour, including work-up training in Canada, I read 26 books. On my second, it was 40. I definitely did read a lot more than usual. While we were incredibly busy at times, there were some stretches where there was quite a bit of downtime. Stripped of access to normal time wasting activities like household chores and checking e-mail, you’d be surprised how much free time there can be in the day. I almost always had at least one book on me, and chipped away a few pages at a time whenever I had 15 minutes to spare.

What kinds of books were you reading?
All kinds. I read a lot of political and international affairs commentary on Canadian and American foreign policy, the history of Afghanistan and the Middle East to try and educate myself as much as possible about what I was doing. Jack Granatstein, Gwynne Dyer, Sarah Chayes, Thomas Ricks. I also read some fiction written by emerging Afghan-Canadian authors like Nelofer Pazira and Khaled Hosseini to get a broader feel for the Afghan social context. I also tried to keep it light with some Chuck Klosterman and other funny people.

How did you get the books that you read while you were over there?
I shipped over quite a few hidden in Army equipment, but those only lasted about a month. After that it was up to my friends and family to throw a book or two in with the steady stream of care packages (thanks all) that I received. My girlfriend sent around a reading list to guide people towards what I’d be interested in, but I was mostly at their mercy.

The best find was when my unit was relieving another unit in a forward area, and I found a weathered copy of The Life of Pi by Yann Martel in the bottom of a bunker. It had been on my reading list for a while, so that was pretty neat.

What did you do with the books after you left Afghanistan?
I shipped most of the good ones home. I’m a bit of a pack rat when it comes to books, and my guilty pleasure is an unnecessarily large book collection. I reluctantly loaned a lot of them to fellow soldiers, some of which I never got back.

Does any one book that you read while you were away stick out in your mind?
Fiasco, by Thomas Ricks, published in 2006. The book is an account of the American War in Iraq up to that point. If you want a detailed account of why that went so poorly, you need not go much further than this book. As an experienced journalist, Ricks had interviewed countless top officials throughout the government and military, and had access to secret documents. As a soldier it was disheartening to learn how disorganized a military could be, but it also helped to reaffirm that the situation in Afghanistan is nothing like Iraq.

Is it common for soldiers to read a lot while on tour? Did you talk about books or share books while you were over there?
Soldiers who read will definitely read more while they are overseas. If reading isn’t your thing to begin with, then you would probably end up playing a lot of cards or chess. Good books would get around so it wouldn’t be hard to find someone to share ideas with.

What kinds of books were available to Afghani people and how did they access them?
I spent most of my time in Afghanistan in the poorest rural areas. In 15 months I can recall seeing only one book, a very old and worn copy of the Quran. The literacy rate was almost zero, so a book would be about the last thing an Afghan in these areas would buy. That said, any book that we gave as a gift would be one of the most highly cherished prizes one could have, as every Afghan parent would hold on to it in the hopes that their children would be able to one day read it to them.

If you were a book, what book would you be?
I would be the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Informative, sarcastic, a good companion, and sometimes helpful.

J’s Must Reads
The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson