Rating: 
Summary: excellent fast paced read
Review: After following Anne Garrels honest and intelligent NPR reports from Baghdad during the early days of the war in Iraq, this book had my attention from page one. Anne Garrels is courageous in her story telling and focus of something other than the obvious politics...the Iraqi people and the reality of her day to day experience. She reported this journal with both compassion and chutzpah. We need more journalists like Anne Garrels.
Rating:
Summary: Anne and Amer
Review: Anne Garrels read from this book at the Madison Book Festival this year. We were especially lucky that Vint, her husband, was also there to read, his pride and concern and affection for Annie was a joy to witness. I wanted to attend the reading just to be able to stand and applaud and honor Anne Garrels for her courage and voice of humanity in her reporting from Iraq. Thank you Anne.This book gives us insight into the patience,courage and creativity of a good journalist. The people of Iraq are made real, the effects of war on people's lives is described with compassion. The messages from Vint go out to form a supporting net of concern for Anne. The relationship and friendship of Amer and Anne gives us hope of bridging the cultural gap. Knowing the other person's shoes might not fit us, learning about and from the differences and grasping hands in the middle. The importance of the real story of war being told grows every day. The reports from Anne Garrels to so many NPR listeners took the machines out of war and made it's horror visible on a human scale. For that we owe her greatful thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Informative and harrowing
Review: Anne Garrels' book (a/k/a documentary) with the assistance of the confidential information she'd sent via e-mail to her husband bank in the U.S. to share with her family "et al" was very moving and harrowing..The "Naked" is just referring to her decision to type one of her NPR deadline messages in the still of the night with clothes close by, so that if anyone demanded her to open her door she'd be able to say she'd have to get dressed first.This did speak well of the fact that she was saying "morality was a code of ethics there", and she could use that excuse with no problem of being demanded to open the door immediately. It showed a humanistic view of "another people" whom we've seem mostly through viewing and assessing their top leaders and is a more clear picture of how 3rd World Countries are torn between so many different ideologies due to support groups around the world which fraction them in such a way that "civil wars" run even more rampant that wars with foreigners{although apparently ever so often they stop the civil wars to fight the foreigners, then back to the civil wars).
Rating:
Summary: Insightful Memoir
Review: Anyone who listened to NPR during the 2003 Gulf War probably heard many of Anne Garrels' reports from Baghdad. She could be heard two or three times a day reporting on events before, during, and after the bombing campaign and subsequent invasion of the city. Garrels reported primarily from the Palestine Hotel, calling in on an illegal satellite phone that she managed to keep hidden from the constant Iraqi security sweeps. The book is a fascinating account of Garrels' time in Baghdad, told through her own journal entries and email updates sent to friends by her husband. It is more about the experiences of a veteran war correspondent than the war itself. As one of only a few American reporters who decided to remain in Baghdad when the bombing campaign began, Garrels displayed remarkable bravery and ingenuity in continuing to file her reports to NPR from a city under seige. I often found myself listening to her reports during the war and wondering what in the world it must be like to be hiding in a hotel room while broadcasting halfway around the world to NPR - and hoping you don't get caught (or killed) while doing so. After reading Naked in Baghdad, it sounds like that wasn't even the most difficult part of her job. The risks she took in going out into the streets to collect the information in order to have something to report every day sounds comparably more difficult. It sounds like Garrells has many more stories to tell from other wars zones (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Pakistan, etc). I look forward to reading more from this reporter.
Rating:
Summary: Hot and Cold
Review: First of all, whether I agree with Anne Garrels' perspective of how President George W. Bush and his administration prepared for post-war Iraq is not as important as giving this woman credit for chasing after the REAL story in Iraq. I am a staunch conservative and a huge George W. Bush supporter, but I also believe liberal-leaning journalists make an effort to tell both sides of any story; they just tell one of those sides a little stronger, that's all.
Anne Garrels is a courageous woman, no doubt. She is committed to her work, and I learned a great deal from reading her book. I have a much better understanding as to why the average Iraqi sees the U.S. occupation as a bad thing. I have also learned a great deal about propaganda and how Saddam used it before, during, and after the war to influence people who actually wished the dictator was gone. Iraq is definitely a complex mix, not easily summed up by any one point of view. Mrs. Garrels does a great job of giving us many different perspectives from different Iraqi citizens.
I did find a few places in the book where some cheap shots at the Bush administration were thrown into the reporting, but I expected that, so it didn't hurt my overall opinion of the book.
Need an example? Okay. Anne Garrels' was quick to criticize the president for not securing the Iraqi museum when we invaded. We now know that the museum was raided long before American troops could have secured it. I doubt Mrs. Garrells knew the true facts before she finished her book, but I felt like she was all to happy to bash the president when the chances came about.
To Garrels credit, she described the brutality of the Saddam regime very poignantly in this book. Garrels is also very good at describing her surroundings and the people she met in Iraq. I felt like I was walking the steets, riding in the cars, and hanging out in the hotel right along with her.
Her e-mail updates from her husband to their friends was a nice touch; it reminded me that liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, we all have loved ones who we want to see return safely to us.
I think most people trying to find out more how this war came about, how it might end, and how historians will see it a hundred years from now will enjoy this book.
See ya next review!
Dan Blankenship
author of THE RUNNING GIRL
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Personal Account Takes You Right There
Review: First off, the few reviews that slam this book for liberal bias, are far more guilty of prejudging than is Garrells; one wonders if they've even read her work. Her portrait of life under Sadam Hussein is sympathetic only to the citizens who live in terror of speaking freely, not of his repressive regime. As mentioned by other reviewers, Garrells really keeps her focus on the the Iraqi's personal experiences and on her own difficulties try to do her job in a corrupt and dangerous enivronment, not on the politics surrounding the war. Before it even starts, both she and the Iraqis seem to view the war as a virtually unavoidable certainty. The book is also a very compelling portrait of what it's like to be an international journalist, specifically a female international journalist. Additionally, Garrells makes compelling comparissions to her experience in Iraq to her experiences covering another repressive regime, the Soviet Union. If I'd read this book when I was in high school, I might have seriously considered a career in internaitonal journalism. While she doesn't make it seem like a glamorous, safe or easy job, it does come across as one of the most challanging and rewarding. Ms. Garrells is a terrific writer, and this nearly contemporaneous account of the build-up to the Iraq invasion helps flesh out the portrait of a time and place on the brink of war.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Book
Review: Here is a book that gives us much of the background behind Anne Garrels time in Baghdad. It takes us in chronological order through the evnts of the war with Iraq and her experiences during that time in the city of Baghdad. For anyone who waited expectantly for each day's new report from Anne this book will be a reality checkpoint as what it was like to be there.
Her words are interspersed with emails of her husband, that were mailed to friends and family at that time
Rating:
Summary: Moving...
Review: I was captivated by Anne Garrels' memoir of her experiences reporting for NPR in Iraq. I couldn't put the book down and didn't want it to end. I admire this woman tremendously. She has so much courage and at the same time is not hardened by the reality of war. The book is honest and well-written. I loved the inclusion of her husband's emails, and was especially moved by the relationship with Amer, her driver. Thank you Anne Garrels for a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating insider's look at the war in Iraq
Review: I'm not good with detail so I will just give my impressions of this book. Normally I have trouble reading non-fiction but I had heard Anne Garrels on NPR and couldn't help being curious about the woman behind the insightful reports from Baghdad. I took "Naked in Baghdad" with me on vacation in Maui and had trouble putting the book down. It was an easy read but not at all fluffy. I was impressed not only by her intelligence and sensitivity as she tried to convey what the situation was like for normal Iraqi citizens, but also her bravery and dedication to her job. I also enjoyed her husband Vint Lawrence's email updates to friends and family, which were both touching and entertaining. The story of her relationship with her driver/translator Amer was also impressive. I am recommending this to all of my friends!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating insider's look at the war in Iraq
Review: I'm not good with detail so I will just give my impressions of this book. Normally I have trouble reading non-fiction but I had heard Anne Garrels on NPR and couldn't help being curious about the woman behind the insightful reports from Baghdad. I took "Naked in Baghdad" with me on vacation in Maui and had trouble putting the book down. It was an easy read but not at all fluffy. I was impressed not only by her intelligence and sensitivity as she tried to convey what the situation was like for normal Iraqi citizens, but also her bravery and dedication to her job. I also enjoyed her husband Vint Lawrence's email updates to friends and family, which were both touching and entertaining. The story of her relationship with her driver/translator Amer was also impressive. I am recommending this to all of my friends!
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