Rating: 
Summary: Flawed Book
Review: Having read this book, I am bewildered about the "oohing" and "ahhhing" various critics have given it. Granted, the author can write hauntingly about war. His description of the fight in Chechnya is unforgetable.However, I had no interest in reading the lengthy passages where he describes his battle with heroin addiction. I have no interest in reading about his tormented relationship with his father. Those passages give me the image of the author as a man who spends a good deal of time at a coffee bar dressed in black, sipping expresso while poring over a stack of self-help books. Oh, and as a veteran of the UN mission in Croatia, I think that he was totally biased in favor of the Muslims. Bottom line: wait for the paperback.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful book. Not as good as Herr's "dispatches".
Review: Anthony Loyd's "My war gone by" deals with Loyd's experiences as a war correspondent in the wars in bosnia and chechnya. He deals with the amorality and arbitrariness of war very well, telling almost casual stories of aimless but brutal men, eager mercenaries and self-serving journalists. But "My war gone by" is also the autobiographical story of Loyd and his spiralling addiction to the adrenalin of war, and later, to heroin. Loyd deals with this brilliantly, even going into painful (but necessary) detail about his traumatic family life. Some people have compared Loyd's book with Michael Herr's book on the Vietnam war, "Dispatches". But the two books are quite different: Herr's writing style is hallucinatory and frenetic: Loyd's is cold and clinical. In many ways this mirrors the differences between the wars. Loyd's book is more about the effect of (mainly) the bosnian war on himself; Herr's book takes a more global perspective - "Dispatches" is about the american consciousness in the late 60's and 70's, the culture in the US and in Vietnam, and maybe most importantly, the effect of the Vietnam war on the soldiers around him. And, in my opinion, this is what makes Herr's book better. Perhaps I was a little uncomfortable by the use of the Bosnian war almost as background to Loyd's own personal problems. But, more than this, I simply felt Herr covered more of the experience of war than Loyd did. A minor quibble: it is surprising, given that Loyd is a photojournalist, that there aren't more examples of his work (save on the cover). But that's a minor criticism. Two thumbs up for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing but Truthful
Review: I was really glad I read this book by Anthony Lloyd. As a former UN peacekeeper in Yugoslavia I can honestly say he hits the nail pretty squarely on the head with this one. He's critical of the West when he should be, he has not set out to make a statement of accusation but he is honest about his loyalties. Some of his more horrific stories caused me to lose sleep, and had me thinking about it for days after. This one is not for the faint hearted. Overrall a very well written book presented in a very honest tone, a definate keeper.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It reminds me of the Vietnam era classics "A Rumor of War" and "Dispatches." The vivid accounts of the Bosnian Wars shames me as it should any citizen of a NATO country. How such horrific acts were allowed to occur within a few minutes planes ride from the most powerful military alliance in history is totally unforgivable. I don't believe the US should be the world's policeman, and in truth at the time I opposed sending American troops to Bosnia. But after such a vivid account of the horror, betrayal, and sheer hopelessness of the lives of those in the former Yugoslavia during the early 90's shames me more than I can say. All this was allowed by western cowardice. It seems our experience in Vietnam has yet to claim it's last victims.
Rating:
Summary: A vivid picture of War
Review: This book transcends Bosnia. It is not so much about Bosnia as it is a portrayol of misery and madness of war.
Rating:
Summary: Chilling, though often disorganized
Review: This book is not only a startling picture of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but also a brilliant psychological description of the warrior himself. As he explains, the author, Anthony Loyd, is a former British soldier who, after the 1991 Gulf War quits the army and decides to be a photo journalist. As we are told, Mr. Loyd, descending from a long line of soldiers, cannot keep himself from battle, so he decides to go to the Balkans to try his camera and see some death. What we see here is the nature of the paramilitary fighters and ex-Titoist warriors that are perpetuating the very war Mr. Loyd is seeking: they just can't stop for they know nothing else. Mr. Loyd, who becomes a writer after he discovers that taking pictures of other people's misfortune is just too much for him to handle, describes each bloody moment that he sees with grotesque detail. He captures not only the brutality, but also the views of the civilians, who really suffer throughout the conflict. Mr. Loyd shows us people who are angry at all sides, not just Serb or Croat, and so fallen into misery that they can't really afford to be afraid anymore. Mr. Loyd intermingles his Bosnia coverage with unnumberd sections (written in italic) that detail the heroin addiction he acquires upon his return to London. This again is a brilliant psychological addition, as Mr. Loyd tells us that he could not bear witnessing the pain of others, but had to feel pain himself-thus the H. While Mr. Loyd maintains the delicate balance between these two narratives, the book falls apart when he adds a third setting--his coverage of the war in Chechnya in 1995. Though Mr. Loyd covers Checnya for only a brief period before jumping right back to Bosnia, the disruption has been made. Though the brutality and potrayal of the people is just as sharp, Mr. Loyd skirts the psychological element of the fighters, the civilians and himself. It only makes sense that this section would fall flat. Chechnya, unlike the Balkan wars, is not a civil conflict, but an instance of a large nation (Russia) trying to quash the independence of a smaller one. Thus the theme of inner conflict, seen both in Mr. Loyd's description of the Balkan war and his own depression and drug abuse, is disrupted. Still, the whole book is worth reading, especially the first half. If its uplifting reading you're looking for, forego this book. But take it up immediately if what you're after is an understanding of one of the bloodiest and complex wars of the 20th century and proof that, as Mr. Loyd tells us, in war, it is sometimes the dead who are lucky.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book. Not as good as Herr's "dispatches".
Review: Anthony Loyd's "My war gone by" deals with Loyd's experiences as a war correspondent in the wars in bosnia and chechnya. He deals with the amorality and arbitrariness of war very well, telling almost casual stories of aimless but brutal men, eager mercenaries and self-serving journalists. But "My war gone by" is also the autobiographical story of Loyd and his spiralling addiction to the adrenalin of war, and later, to heroin. Loyd deals with this brilliantly, even going into painful (but necessary) detail about his traumatic family life. Some people have compared Loyd's book with Michael Herr's book on the Vietnam war, "Dispatches". But the two books are quite different: Herr's writing style is hallucinatory and frenetic: Loyd's is cold and clinical. In many ways this mirrors the differences between the wars. Loyd's book is more about the effect of (mainly) the bosnian war on himself; Herr's book takes a more global perspective - "Dispatches" is about the american consciousness in the late 60's and 70's, the culture in the US and in Vietnam, and maybe most importantly, the effect of the Vietnam war on the soldiers around him. And, in my opinion, this is what makes Herr's book better. Perhaps I was a little uncomfortable by the use of the Bosnian war almost as background to Loyd's own personal problems. But, more than this, I simply felt Herr covered more of the experience of war than Loyd did. A minor quibble: it is surprising, given that Loyd is a photojournalist, that there aren't more examples of his work (save on the cover). But that's a minor criticism. Two thumbs up for this book.
Rating: 
Summary: It's Not Your War
Review: This book made me very angry. Who does Anthony Loyd think he is, that he can go barging into another country's war and make it his own? I got tired of his musings on a war that didn't mean anything to him other than a chance to get off on seeing atrocities. He could get out of Bosnia any time he wanted to yet he made it seem that he was a Bosnian with their same ideals and values. You don't have to lose sight of who you are to be a good war journalist. Being in a war zone doesn't change your identity and I thought that Loyd tried to find himself a new personality too much. I also was sickened by his casual and almost amused accounts of the horrible battles that occured. He is clearly a sadistic, desensitised individual.
If you want to read a good book on the war in the Balkans, read 'Seasons in Hell.' It's much better and more appropriate.
Rating:
Summary: an odd book
Review: Loyd is a fine writer and, though I'm sure he'd be disgusted with my saying something like this, his book was so jarring and vivid that I felt as if I had spent some time in the Bosnian War myself. When in fact I was in the comfort of my reclining chair the whole time.
One thing that struck me as strange about the book is that the author -- unless he's writing under a persona -- had a major heroin problem the entire time he was covering the war! Whoa! I had thought that war correspondents would be the kind of people to have their act together on so many levels, but I guess not. . .
Anyhow, a good portion of the book deals with the author's experiences with heroin and his relationship with his father. This stuff is by no means bad; it's just not what I was expecting to read.
Regrettably, I am still confused about this war: who was fighting, and why, etc. This book will certainly not clear that up for you: Loyd expects you to know who the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats are before you come to its pages. So don't expect that to be explained here.
But a fine book anyhow. Loyd is a master of the kind of sinewy, spare prose that is a perfect vehicle for the rendering of a war.
The atrocities he described will not easily be forgotten -- that aspect of his writing has been very well brought off. But the central merit of the book, I feel, lies not in describing horrors, but rather in the way Loyd details how all the blood and the fear gradually starting working on his mind, delineating, as I have rarely seen before, the process by which one becomes jaded and "inured."
Rating: 
Summary: mostly masturbatory
Review: Loyd's view is honest, but terribly self-involved. He makes no effort to hide the fact that being a war correspondent is more like being a war pornographer for him, and he revels gracelessly in his own hubris and his own voyeurism. The book is not well-written enough to make up for it, and I finally gave up in disgust. If you want to read a great book on war, and being a war correspondent, read Michael Herr's "Dispatches". The violence and the conflict over the correspondent's position are there, but Herr writes beautifully, and with real compassion for the all of the people, soldier and civilian, who suffered so horribly in Vietnam.
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