Baghdad Burning
 In March 2003, the United States launched an attack that started the war in Iraq. In August, a 24-year-old Iraqi woman initiated a counter-attack in the form of a blog. Both continue. The pseudonymous "Riverbend" has written with great eloquence, passion, and cogency about her experience during the occupation, so much so that her posts have been aggregated in two books. While we try to quantify the tragedy in Iraq with reported numbers symbolizing the dead, wounded, and displaced, this one first-hand account cuts to the truth of the situation on the ground more than any news reports or histories ever could. Whether clarifying Saddam's last words before he was executed, asserting Sunni-Shiia pre-war harmony, or highlighting the degradation of women's rights and safety in the post-war period, Riverbend's perceptions of the whirlwind events that are Iraq today will leave an indelible mark on any reader.
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