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Last month the Library doubled the shelving devoted to its Recreational Reading Collection
and added more than 90 new books. One of those books was Shutterbabe: Adventures in
Love and War by Deborah Copaken Kogan, the story of a very young photojournalist on her
first assignments.
Kogan hooks you from the opening paragraph:
THERE'S A WAR GOING ON, AND I'M BLEEDING. An unfortunate situation, to be sure, but considering it's 2 a.m., fresh snow is falling and I'm squished in the back of an old army truck with a band of Afghani freedom fighters who, to avoid being bombed by the Soviet planes circling above, have decided to drive without headlights through the Hindu Kush Mountains over unpaved icy roads laced with land mines, it's also one without obvious remedy. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Ask the driver to pull over for a sec so I can squat behind the nearest snowbank to change my tampon?
Through the rest of the book, Kogan describes her work photographing:
- rhino poaching in Zimbabwe
- a heroin epidemic in Switzerland
- orphans in Romania
- the Gorbachev coup in Moscow
But she also tells the story of the men she met and her love affairs, usually in shocking
detail and with brutal honesty.
Liz Featherstone of the Washington Post summarized the book well:
eloquent and well-observed, not only about the memoirist but about the world: war, death,
photojournalism and, of course, the worldwide battle between the sexes.
Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War can be found in the nonfiction section of the Library's Recreational
Reading Collection located on the first floor.
David Schoen wrote this Monthly Book Spotlight.
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