The Good Soldiers - David Finkel

The author spent about a year with a battalion of soldiers that were part of George Bush's 'surge' in Iraq. The result is not exactly impartial, it would probably be impossible not to express some exasperation at the futility of the project but it's certainly not an anti-war polemic either.

It's the first book to bring me to tears for as long as I can remember (I'm prepared to stand corrected if anyone can think of any examples).

I wouldn't claim that it was a literary masterpiece (having just read some reviews slamming the prose) but I found it to be incredibly vivid and realistic.

Great, and what's more I borrowed it from the library so it cost me nuffink.