A collection of journalistic essays that are really linked only by being horrifying and dangerous. Most of them are related to war in some way (like Junger's investigations in Kosovo or Sierra Leone, for example) but a small number are entirely different. The title, for instance, refers to the opening essay on fighting forest fires, and there's another piece on whaling. Junger's extremely easy to read - this is the second book of his I've read and he manages to be intelligent and informative without being wordy or judgemental. That being said, you wouldn't catch me wandering around a civil war being shot at for a story. It's a necessary job, I grant you, and fascinating to read about but I reckon there's got to be something that attracts a certain type of person to danger and that person is not me.

Best entry here, I think, was the one co-written with Scott Anderson on the political stalemate going on in Cyprus. Really, really interesting stuff, with a conclusion that does its level best to wrench the potential for hope out of determined misery.