- has mattered to him and also if you feel linkage between, say, tim o'brien or phil caputo or karl milante feel like your book is following in line with some of those books and telling the same kinds of stories. >> there's a lot of books. i had a professor in college, a poet, fantastic poet, tom slays, who -- when he learned i was joining the marine corps, had me read, like, tolstoy and hemingway, to fill my head with a little bit of wisdom from some of the smartest people to write about war. the cannon of war writing is grim. i was reading, "the good soldier." the great world war 1 novel written by a czech anarchist. while i was writing one of the stories in here. as i was writing the book i was also reading things to inform me -- to inform me about kind of technical matters, so i get the details ruth of these different jobs, but also i was reading tough get the emotional things right. so times it was war literature, and sometimes it was like a diary of a country priest, or beer in the snooker club. a brilliant egyptian novel. or whatever it might be. >> you're way too well read. earlier