David Finkel, the acclaimed Washington Post war correspondent and author of “The Good Soldiers,” will be in Tampa on Oct. 23 to speak before a meeting of the Friends of the Library of Hillsborough County. The event will be at noon in the University Club, which is on the top floor of the One City Center building in downtown Tampa. To get tickets for the event ($25), call the organization at (813) 273-3616.
Finkel, a 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner who graduated from the University of Florida, is a great choice for an event that is always interesting (I’ve been to several of these, and it’s always entertaining to hear directly from writers like Stephen J. Cannell and Dennis Lehane). Finkel travelled in Iraq with the Second Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the Fourth Infantry Brigade Combat Team, First Division. His reporting from the Middle Eastern conflict has been riveting and has made “The Good Soldiers” a critically acclaimed work.
For example, here’s a quote from the New York Times review: “You will be able to take this book down from the shelf years from now and say: This is what happened. This is what it felt like.”
Finkel won the Pulitzer in 2006 for his reporting on efforts paid for by the United States to encourage democracy in Yemen.