The Junior Officers' Reading Club


The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars is a 2009 book by Patrick Hennessey, a former officer in the Grenadier Guards.
It charts his military career, from training at Sandhurst through several campaigns including Iraq and Afghanistan. The book received positive reviews for its account of the realities of modern soldiering and warfare.
The book was serialised as the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 in June 2009. A sequel, Kandak, was written by Hennessey in 2012.

Reading list

A version of the book published by Penguin Books with a new Afterword in 2010 details the books that were read in "The Junior Officers' Reading Club". The list is as follows:
TitleAuthorISBN
The Marsh ArabsWilfred Thesiger
DispatchesMichael Herr
ChickenhawkRobert Mason
Andrew Cockburn
The Utility of ForceRupert Smith
On WarCarl von Clausewitz
Catch-22Joseph Heller
Ice Cold in AlexChristopher Landon
The Count of Monte CristoAlexandre Dumas
Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes
Kingdom of FearHunter S. Thompson
A Confederacy of DuncesJohn Kennedy Toole
The Day of the LocustNathanael West
The Rules of AttractionBret Easton Ellis
GlamoramaBret Easton Ellis
Vile BodiesEvelyn Waugh
Tristram ShandyLaurence Sterne