No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden: The Autobiography of a Navy Seal: Library Edition

Owen and his coauthor, Kevin Maurer...ably navigate the reader through the secretive world of the SEALs, as well as Owen's graduation into SEAL Team 6, an elite group within the SEAL elite that, along with the Army's Delta Force, is arguably the most effective fighting unit in the world...The writing is fast-paced, and Owen and Maurer tell some good yarns in a conversational style. They also neatly capture the camaraderie, the pranks, the constant training, and the evident love that the men of SEAL Team 6 have for their jobs. Of course, the readers who are lining up to buy No Easy Day are not doing so to read just another SEAL memoir. They want to know exactly what happened the night bin Laden was killed and what it felt like to be on that mission. Owen and Maurer do not disappoint. They take the reader on a roller-coaster ride, opening the book with Owen on the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed within the first seconds of the SEAL team's arrival at bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Authentic enough to provoke Pentagon legal threats and convey a compelling realism. [Owen's] meticulous narrative of the raid adds new wrinkles to the conventional account...along with atmospheric details, from the terror of an initial helicopter crash to his cleaning of blood from Bin Laden's face for identifying photos. The raid caps Owen's well-observed memoir of training ordeals, awesome gear, bonding and banter, and special ops in Iraq and Afghanistan; coauthor Maurer shapes these missions into tense scenes of strategizing, stealth, and action...An absorbing portrait of the work-a-day soldierly professionalism that proved Bin Laden's nemesis.

Since bin Laden was a significant figure, historians will consult this book as a primary source; they, as well as most general readers, will not regret it.