In a book club? Please take our annual Book Club Survey

Excerpt from What the Taliban Told Me by Ian Fritz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Readalikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

What the Taliban Told Me by Ian Fritz

What the Taliban Told Me

by Ian Fritz
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • First Published:
  • Nov 7, 2023, 304 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Nov 2024, 304 pages
  • Rate this book

About this Book

Print Excerpt


Being a DSO in Afghanistan meant making life and death decisions (and not or). We could decide who lived, and who died. When we had flown a mission, and done our job right, it was no lie or even an exaggeration to say we had done something that very few other people were capable of doing. When I did it, I was one of only two DSOs who spoke both Dari and Pashto; there was only one other person on Earth who had received the training I had, who could do the work I did.

Because I experienced all of the things I did in the Air Force at a young age, it might have been impossible for them to be anything but formative. Because very little else that followed was imbued with the same amount of life and death, other things will always pale in comparison. Or maybe it really was the most important thing I've ever done, or will ever do. And so, though everything in this book is true, and most of it is about me, it is not a memoir, as I don't know how to tell you who I am. Nor is it a war book, as I don't know how to make you understand war. All this book can do—all I can do—is show you what I was.

I was a DSO.

And this is what I heard.

Excerpted from What the Taliban Told Me by Ian Fritz. Copyright © 2023 by Ian Fritz. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  What Is Moral Injury?

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Bluest Eye
    by Toni Morrison
    The story of a black girl in America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others. First published 1970; won the 1993 Nobel Prize.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Three Days in June
    by Anne Tyler

    A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

  • Book Jacket

    Harlem Rhapsody
    by Victoria Christopher Murray

    The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance.

Who Said...

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D to T N

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.