"The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster" (Palgrave Macmillan), by Jonathan M. Katz

After two and one-half years in Haiti, Jonathan Katz was preparing to leave the impoverished but endlessly intriguing nation in January 2010. His next reporting assignment: Afghanistan. Then, a massive earthquake ripped apart his house, his plans and the lives of Haitians all around him.

So Katz, then an Associated Press reporter and the only full-time American correspondent in Haiti, wound up staying to chronicle the aftermath of the temblor. Life in Afghanistan may have been more uplifting.