Took a break from novels this past month to read Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down. I had read a couple of chapters a few years ago to inspire me when I was writing a war story for the paper, but never got around to finishing the book. Even those first few chapters amazed me, the incredible blow-by-blow detail of the fire fight. After reading the whole book, I’m still astonished by Bowden’s reporting, his ability to put you into the middle of this terrifying fire fight in the middle of Mogahdishu, Somalia.