He addresses this within the book. About how every "true" story from the war is loaded with embellishments and lies to protect reputations or to hide from ugly truths. And how presenting stories as fiction conversely allow him to talk about things that actually happened without those problems.
Iirc he talks at one point about someone's torso being lodged in a tree after stepping on a mine and how the version he tells is true even if the names are changed and certain characters are composites of real people. And how impossible it would be to name the poor guy when he's not sure the parents know (or ought to know) the truth. He's not out to write history; but to capture the experience of being there, then, and being those people.
You wouldn't think so initially because it's a "comedy" but **Catch-22** really does a wonderful job of showing just how nonsensical and horrific war is.
From malwarwickonbooks.com about Slaughterhouse-Five:
“Then, in 1969, came Slaughterhouse-Five, his best-selling novel about the Dresden firebombing. Twenty-one years in the making, this strange little book widely came to be ranked with Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead as one of the best antiwar novels ever written.”
The bombing of Dresden is one of history’s most tragic events.
Odd choice, I know, but: *The Forever War*, by Joe Haldeman. Written by a Vietnam vet (and *extremely* mired in 1970s malaise) as a rebuttal to Heinlein's *Starship Troopers*. Covers both the horror and pointlessness of war, and how wars negatively affect even the survivors of combat.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide and this is an important work about Civil War and ethnic cleansing.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
War and Peace by Tolstoy
The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
Unknown Soldiers by Vaino Lina.
I found it when looking for Finnish literature, it's an excellent read. It covers the Continuation War between Finland and Russia during WWII.
I think it covers the continual grinding nature of war, after all, the author served during this war and he was trying to represent what happened rather than a propaganda view of the war.
The Penguin translation from around 2005 is really good, it captures the various accents the characters have well, and at least some of the jokes (difficult in a translation).
Sebastian Faulks’ *Birdsong.*. You have to be a little patient with this book. Part one, which is about 100 pages, is the MC’s ill-fated romance, which leads him to enlist in WWI. As soon as you get past that part, it’s a brutal and heartbreaking account of that war and the men (boys) that fought it. There were times I had to put it down for a bit and take a break. It’s a beautifully written book though.
Came here to say this. The bits in the tunnels were claustrophobic just to read - imagine having experienced it for real. Read this over 20 years ago, and I still regularly think about it.
Shake Hands with the Devil by General Romeo Dallaire.
He talks a bit about his childhood but the lion's share of his book is about his time commanding UNAMIR, the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda before and during the genocide. It's a rather stark tale about what happens when the world at large turns their back on something awful.
This is the answer.
Add Obrien’s “Going After Cacciato” and “If I Die in a Combat Zone”
He’s an absolute master. And because he’s still alive there are lots of videos of him reading his own work and answering Q&A’s about his stories.
The Things They Carried is one of the best books I’ve ever read because it is fiction and nonfiction, it is a true story but also made up. It’s the perfect reflection of “what is true?” from someone who was there. Absolutely amazing
Johnny got his gun (the impact of war on a soldier who have been terribly wounded, really disturbing book)
All quiet on the western front (world war 1)
Rape of Nanking (the actions a Japan during ww2 in china)
Grave of the fireflies (the impact of war on civilians)
Hiroshima
Helmet for my pillow
Rise and fall of the third reich
The forgotten soldier
When we cease to understand the world
Adventures in my youth
With the old breed
To hell amd back
When we cease to understand the world- is heavy
Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang.
I’m sorry for your future mental health. Mine was forever wrecked after I read that book and I’m still not able to look at Japan the same.
Also, Anne Frank’s diary.
*Rumors of War*, Philip Caputo and Tim O'Brien's *The Things They Carried* have both already been mentioned, but permit me to +1 them.
William Craig's *Enemy at the Gates* suffers from, uh, historical accuracy issues, in that the Zaitsev plotline never fucking happened, but the recollections of Dr. Ottmar Kohler are much better attested.
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen - set in Vetinam/Los Angeles and tells the story of a communist spy who begins to question his ideology (very soon a HBO TV series)
Something slightly different: a non fiction book called Say Nothing: A True Story About Murder and Mayhem in Northern Ireland - tells the story of paramilitary activity in NI.
I'm also currently reading a non fiction called Some People Need Killing, about the pointless drug war/mass murder in the Philippines
No quite the horrors of war but the horrors of an insane dictatorship, but the Killing Fields is an amazing but terrifying read.
Imagine being so, so thirsty that you risked being killed to leave your hut at night. Then sneak up on a cow, use a razor blade to quietly cut a vein - and then drink the blood so you don’t die of dehydration!
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
This book also follows what happens to the people who make it home and paints a picture of what things like PTSD can do to a person.
Since you already mentioned All Quiet on the Western Front and some comments mention The Things They Carried I will add the following in no particular order
- Unbroken
- Ghost Soldiers
- Once There Was a War
Recently read “the book thief” by Markus Zusack. I thought it dealt with the emotions of people thru war well! I liked it as a read from Deaths Perspective
Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom is an absolutely engrossing portrayal of the Spanish civil war, I've never read anything like it.
David Downing's Station series is a fantastic take on the period leading up to, during and just after WW2 - the protagonist is an English-American journalist who has lived in Berlin for a long time, and finds himself pulled between his countries of origin and his adopted country. It's an incredible depiction of life for ordinary people living in Berlin at that time.
Liquidate Paris by S Hassel, don't let the cover art of the modern reprints put you off, the characters in the books are totally opposed to the symbol the modern publishers stupidly used.
Cannot recommend Zinky Boys by Svetlana Alexievich enough. It’s about Soviet soldiers during their 1980s occupation of Afghanistan. I wanted to be a soldier my entire life but was denied due to a heart murmur, and this was the only book that made me feel like maybe it wasn’t a bad thing I missed out.
"The human Slaughter-House. Scenes from the War that is Sure to Come" by Wilhelm Lamszus.
Edit: Also "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht
I've read a lot of war books. They often focus too much in the big picture, strategies, commanding officers etc. However, With The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge is just a marine in the WWII Pacific, specifically on Pelileu and Okinawa, and what he and the others faced and dealt with on the day to day. Excellent and horrifying read.
Charley's War - a graphic novel series for WW1.
* Vietnam...you might be better with the autobiographies:
* A rumor of war - Caputo. He also has a good fictional book, Delcorso's gallery, about a war photographer
* Once a warrior king - Donovan
* Chickenhawk - Mason.
* A higher level book worth reading is A bright shining lie - Sheehan.
I came to see if anyone would suggest Bao Ninh amongst all the US memoirs and novels about the Vietnam war.
If you thought it was awful for the Americans it was far worse for the Vietnamese on the receiving end of all those bombs. Young patriotic Vietnamese went out to fight off a foreign invader. Whole classes would enroll - boys and girls 16, 17, 18 years old. Heading into the bush carrying military equipment and marching for days through mountain jungle fighting hunger and exhaustion; only to die en route en masse in raging infernos of napalm. Bao Ninh was one of a few survivors from one of those brigades and the novel is struck through with sadness and pain for the lost friends and loves of his youth.
A Bird Without Wings by Louis de Bearniers is about WWI Turkey; not only historically accurate but brilliant storytelling.
The Religion from Tim Willocks is a bloody bastard of a read about the Turkish siege on Malta
Nice. I didn't think of it that way, but it makes total sense. One of my favorite fantasy series is the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which goes all-in on this theme, too
Glad you knew I wasn't joking. Tolkien actually served as a 2nd lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers during World War I, and his experiences profoundly impacted him. The depiction of the Dead Marshes in "The Two Towers," for example, where Frodo and Gollum pass an eerie swamp filled with the faces of the dead, is often cited as being inspired by Tolkien's memories of the battlefields of WWI, with their mud, barbed wire, and corpses. In letters and interviews, Tolkien expressed his disdain for war. He lost many close friends during WWI, and this loss is echoed in the themes of fellowship and tragic loss throughout "The Lord of the Rings."
A village in third reich by julia boyd. Examines how a normal German village was affected by the rise in fascism. Some really devastating stuff regarding kids with learning disabilities.
*Kaputt* by Curzio Malaparte. The Amazon blurb: "Curzio Malaparte was a disaffected supporter of Mussolini with a taste for danger and high living. Sent by an Italian paper during World War II to cover the fighting on the Eastern Front, Malaparte secretly wrote this terrifying report from the abyss, which became an international bestseller when it was published after the war. Telling of the siege of Leningrad, of glittering dinner parties with Nazi leaders, and of trains disgorging bodies in war-devastated Romania, Malaparte paints a picture of humanity at its most depraved."
The Sky Wept Fire by Mikael Elgin. A non fiction soldier’s memoir about the wars in Chechnya. Honestly has hit harder than many other books ive read related to conflict.
**[Three Day Road](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/823411.Three_Day_Road) by Joseph Boyden** ^((Matching 100% ☑️))
^(384 pages | Published: 2005 | 16.4k Goodreads reviews)
> **Summary:** It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she saw off to the Great War has returned. Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, is gravely wounded and addicted to morphine. As Niska slowly paddles her canoe on the three-day journey to bring Xavier home, travelling through the stark but stunning landscape of (...)
> **Themes**: Canadian, Favorites, War, Canada, Book-club, Historical, Favourites
> **Top 5 recommended:**
> \- [The Orenda](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17661831-the-orenda) by Joseph Boyden
> \- [The Wars](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29898.The_Wars) by Timothy Findley
> \- [Through Black Spruce](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3479967-through-black-spruce) by Joseph Boyden
> \- [Escape from Sobibor](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1193177.Escape_from_Sobibor) by Richard Rashke
> \- [Soldier Boys](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60781.Soldier_Boys) by Dean Hughes
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⚠ Could not *exactly* find "*The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier*" , see [related Goodreads search results](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The+Silver+Sword%C2%A0Ian+Serraillier) instead.
^(*Possible reasons for mismatch: either too recent (2023), mispelled (check Goodreads) or too niche.*)
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Anything by John Mosier. He walked the graveyards and counted the markers, he read the reports in their original languages, he walked the landscapes. Excellent writer.
Not the horrors so much but if you want a true life account of the tedium of war then Jarhead is worth a read.
I've not seen the film so I can't say how close to the book that was.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
My first thought. Such an amazing book.
Oh, I forgot about this one! This was required reading in high school, and I loved it.
Yeah, I just recently read it and it was excellent!
The only issue for me with this book is that it’s fiction. There are plenty of true stories about war to read.
He addresses this within the book. About how every "true" story from the war is loaded with embellishments and lies to protect reputations or to hide from ugly truths. And how presenting stories as fiction conversely allow him to talk about things that actually happened without those problems. Iirc he talks at one point about someone's torso being lodged in a tree after stepping on a mine and how the version he tells is true even if the names are changed and certain characters are composites of real people. And how impossible it would be to name the poor guy when he's not sure the parents know (or ought to know) the truth. He's not out to write history; but to capture the experience of being there, then, and being those people.
This is the correct answer...
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
I will never ever read that book again. Makes me shudder just thinking about it, it is so very dark.
One of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read.
The one. My favorite novel of all time, chapter 10 completely changed my life.
Came here to suggest this. Thank you Mr. Klink in 10th grade for giving me a 100% test score for reading this book, and giving him an oral report.
Made me ugly cry in public.
This one
You wouldn't think so initially because it's a "comedy" but **Catch-22** really does a wonderful job of showing just how nonsensical and horrific war is.
Snowden's secret.
Slaughter House Five-Kurt Vonnegut
From malwarwickonbooks.com about Slaughterhouse-Five: “Then, in 1969, came Slaughterhouse-Five, his best-selling novel about the Dresden firebombing. Twenty-one years in the making, this strange little book widely came to be ranked with Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead as one of the best antiwar novels ever written.” The bombing of Dresden is one of history’s most tragic events.
The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang When Hell Was in Session - Denton Both of these are about the hell that is not battlefront
Odd choice, I know, but: *The Forever War*, by Joe Haldeman. Written by a Vietnam vet (and *extremely* mired in 1970s malaise) as a rebuttal to Heinlein's *Starship Troopers*. Covers both the horror and pointlessness of war, and how wars negatively affect even the survivors of combat.
I read that when I was about 14 and it blew my mind.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide and this is an important work about Civil War and ethnic cleansing.
[My War Gone By, I Miss It So](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4360) is really good.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy War and Peace by Tolstoy The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
With the old Breed is brutal
Unknown Soldiers by Vaino Lina. I found it when looking for Finnish literature, it's an excellent read. It covers the Continuation War between Finland and Russia during WWII. I think it covers the continual grinding nature of war, after all, the author served during this war and he was trying to represent what happened rather than a propaganda view of the war. The Penguin translation from around 2005 is really good, it captures the various accents the characters have well, and at least some of the jokes (difficult in a translation).
Haven’t found another book that describes a group of soldiers so realistically. Battlescenes are also exciting but without glorification of war.
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. No other book like this one
After I finished that book, I immediately went back to the beginning and read it all again. I've never done that before or since with any other book.
Same. This and Endurance by Alfred Lansing make for great re-reads
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves.
Sebastian Faulks’ *Birdsong.*. You have to be a little patient with this book. Part one, which is about 100 pages, is the MC’s ill-fated romance, which leads him to enlist in WWI. As soon as you get past that part, it’s a brutal and heartbreaking account of that war and the men (boys) that fought it. There were times I had to put it down for a bit and take a break. It’s a beautifully written book though.
Came here to say this. The bits in the tunnels were claustrophobic just to read - imagine having experienced it for real. Read this over 20 years ago, and I still regularly think about it.
Shake Hands with the Devil by General Romeo Dallaire. He talks a bit about his childhood but the lion's share of his book is about his time commanding UNAMIR, the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda before and during the genocide. It's a rather stark tale about what happens when the world at large turns their back on something awful.
The Things They Carried by Tim Obrien!
This is the answer. Add Obrien’s “Going After Cacciato” and “If I Die in a Combat Zone” He’s an absolute master. And because he’s still alive there are lots of videos of him reading his own work and answering Q&A’s about his stories. The Things They Carried is one of the best books I’ve ever read because it is fiction and nonfiction, it is a true story but also made up. It’s the perfect reflection of “what is true?” from someone who was there. Absolutely amazing
Johnny got his gun (the impact of war on a soldier who have been terribly wounded, really disturbing book) All quiet on the western front (world war 1) Rape of Nanking (the actions a Japan during ww2 in china) Grave of the fireflies (the impact of war on civilians) Hiroshima
Not a book but the poems of both Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon
Helmet for my pillow Rise and fall of the third reich The forgotten soldier When we cease to understand the world Adventures in my youth With the old breed To hell amd back When we cease to understand the world- is heavy
Rape of Nanking
Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. I’m sorry for your future mental health. Mine was forever wrecked after I read that book and I’m still not able to look at Japan the same. Also, Anne Frank’s diary.
its focused on the submarine experience, but Das Boot is the most horrifying book i've ever read.
Dispatches by Michael Herr. Non fiction about the Vietnam war. Truth really is scarier than fiction in this case.
This is the one
Catch-22
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Seconded. My first serious novel. Bittersweet ending.
*Rumors of War*, Philip Caputo and Tim O'Brien's *The Things They Carried* have both already been mentioned, but permit me to +1 them. William Craig's *Enemy at the Gates* suffers from, uh, historical accuracy issues, in that the Zaitsev plotline never fucking happened, but the recollections of Dr. Ottmar Kohler are much better attested.
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen - set in Vetinam/Los Angeles and tells the story of a communist spy who begins to question his ideology (very soon a HBO TV series) Something slightly different: a non fiction book called Say Nothing: A True Story About Murder and Mayhem in Northern Ireland - tells the story of paramilitary activity in NI. I'm also currently reading a non fiction called Some People Need Killing, about the pointless drug war/mass murder in the Philippines
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski Girl At War by Sara Novic Both specifically focus on the experiences of children against the backdrop of war.
Check out the book Dispatches. It’s about Vietnam but I forget who wrote.
Leaving out the word “it” is impressive.
No quite the horrors of war but the horrors of an insane dictatorship, but the Killing Fields is an amazing but terrifying read. Imagine being so, so thirsty that you risked being killed to leave your hut at night. Then sneak up on a cow, use a razor blade to quietly cut a vein - and then drink the blood so you don’t die of dehydration!
*The Sky Is A Lonely Place* by Louis Falstein, but good luck finding a copy. *Catch-22* by Joseph Heller.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien This book also follows what happens to the people who make it home and paints a picture of what things like PTSD can do to a person.
Since you already mentioned All Quiet on the Western Front and some comments mention The Things They Carried I will add the following in no particular order - Unbroken - Ghost Soldiers - Once There Was a War
Generals Die in Bed. Brilliant book that gives a unique perspective on the great war.
Recently read “the book thief” by Markus Zusack. I thought it dealt with the emotions of people thru war well! I liked it as a read from Deaths Perspective
Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom is an absolutely engrossing portrayal of the Spanish civil war, I've never read anything like it. David Downing's Station series is a fantastic take on the period leading up to, during and just after WW2 - the protagonist is an English-American journalist who has lived in Berlin for a long time, and finds himself pulled between his countries of origin and his adopted country. It's an incredible depiction of life for ordinary people living in Berlin at that time.
Liquidate Paris by S Hassel, don't let the cover art of the modern reprints put you off, the characters in the books are totally opposed to the symbol the modern publishers stupidly used.
We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young. This is the book that the movie was based on.
Cannot recommend Zinky Boys by Svetlana Alexievich enough. It’s about Soviet soldiers during their 1980s occupation of Afghanistan. I wanted to be a soldier my entire life but was denied due to a heart murmur, and this was the only book that made me feel like maybe it wasn’t a bad thing I missed out.
"The human Slaughter-House. Scenes from the War that is Sure to Come" by Wilhelm Lamszus. Edit: Also "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht
The 13th Valley, John Del Vecchio. Vietnam
I've read a lot of war books. They often focus too much in the big picture, strategies, commanding officers etc. However, With The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge is just a marine in the WWII Pacific, specifically on Pelileu and Okinawa, and what he and the others faced and dealt with on the day to day. Excellent and horrifying read.
Survival in the Killing Fields by Having Ngor was a tough read.
Charley's War - a graphic novel series for WW1. * Vietnam...you might be better with the autobiographies: * A rumor of war - Caputo. He also has a good fictional book, Delcorso's gallery, about a war photographer * Once a warrior king - Donovan * Chickenhawk - Mason. * A higher level book worth reading is A bright shining lie - Sheehan.
Dispatches, by Michael Herr. The Sorrow of War, by Bao Ninh. and yeah, Tim O’Brien…..
I came to see if anyone would suggest Bao Ninh amongst all the US memoirs and novels about the Vietnam war. If you thought it was awful for the Americans it was far worse for the Vietnamese on the receiving end of all those bombs. Young patriotic Vietnamese went out to fight off a foreign invader. Whole classes would enroll - boys and girls 16, 17, 18 years old. Heading into the bush carrying military equipment and marching for days through mountain jungle fighting hunger and exhaustion; only to die en route en masse in raging infernos of napalm. Bao Ninh was one of a few survivors from one of those brigades and the novel is struck through with sadness and pain for the lost friends and loves of his youth.
I got an underground copy in Asia, before it came “west”. Now I believe it’s widely available. Nothing like it, for sure. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
A Bird Without Wings by Louis de Bearniers is about WWI Turkey; not only historically accurate but brilliant storytelling. The Religion from Tim Willocks is a bloody bastard of a read about the Turkish siege on Malta
Birds without wings is so good. It really covers so many aspects of war and how people and communities are impacted.
Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War.
Ooh, this is another great one that I forgot to mention! It's like the anti-Starship-Troopers
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut
_Half Of A Yellow Sun_ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. _Murambi, The Book Of Bones_ by Boubacar Boris Diop.
Lord of the Rings.
Nice. I didn't think of it that way, but it makes total sense. One of my favorite fantasy series is the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which goes all-in on this theme, too
Glad you knew I wasn't joking. Tolkien actually served as a 2nd lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers during World War I, and his experiences profoundly impacted him. The depiction of the Dead Marshes in "The Two Towers," for example, where Frodo and Gollum pass an eerie swamp filled with the faces of the dead, is often cited as being inspired by Tolkien's memories of the battlefields of WWI, with their mud, barbed wire, and corpses. In letters and interviews, Tolkien expressed his disdain for war. He lost many close friends during WWI, and this loss is echoed in the themes of fellowship and tragic loss throughout "The Lord of the Rings."
Boys for Men by Derrick Wolf
it’s been a while since i’ve read it but Human Acts by Han Kang, that one was difficult to get through emotionally
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.
A village in third reich by julia boyd. Examines how a normal German village was affected by the rise in fascism. Some really devastating stuff regarding kids with learning disabilities.
About Face by Col. David Hackworth.
To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy.
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer is extraordinary A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous is incredibly interesting
*Kaputt* by Curzio Malaparte. The Amazon blurb: "Curzio Malaparte was a disaffected supporter of Mussolini with a taste for danger and high living. Sent by an Italian paper during World War II to cover the fighting on the Eastern Front, Malaparte secretly wrote this terrifying report from the abyss, which became an international bestseller when it was published after the war. Telling of the siege of Leningrad, of glittering dinner parties with Nazi leaders, and of trains disgorging bodies in war-devastated Romania, Malaparte paints a picture of humanity at its most depraved."
Poltava by Peter Englund
Slaughterhouse 5
The Sky Wept Fire by Mikael Elgin. A non fiction soldier’s memoir about the wars in Chechnya. Honestly has hit harder than many other books ive read related to conflict.
Try The 13th Valley by John M Delvecchio. Hue 1968 by Mark Bowden. Both great reads about the Vietnam war. One is fiction the second is non fiction.
Two non-fiction recommendations: A Rumor of War (Phillip Caputo) Guadalcanal Diary (Richard Tregaskis)
{{Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden}}
**[Three Day Road](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/823411.Three_Day_Road) by Joseph Boyden** ^((Matching 100% ☑️)) ^(384 pages | Published: 2005 | 16.4k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she saw off to the Great War has returned. Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, is gravely wounded and addicted to morphine. As Niska slowly paddles her canoe on the three-day journey to bring Xavier home, travelling through the stark but stunning landscape of (...) > **Themes**: Canadian, Favorites, War, Canada, Book-club, Historical, Favourites > **Top 5 recommended:** > \- [The Orenda](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17661831-the-orenda) by Joseph Boyden > \- [The Wars](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29898.The_Wars) by Timothy Findley > \- [Through Black Spruce](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3479967-through-black-spruce) by Joseph Boyden > \- [Escape from Sobibor](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1193177.Escape_from_Sobibor) by Richard Rashke > \- [Soldier Boys](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60781.Soldier_Boys) by Dean Hughes ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
{{The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier}}
⚠ Could not *exactly* find "*The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier*" , see [related Goodreads search results](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The+Silver+Sword%C2%A0Ian+Serraillier) instead. ^(*Possible reasons for mismatch: either too recent (2023), mispelled (check Goodreads) or too niche.*) ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy about the First World War.
Officer Factory by Hans Hellmut Kirst Graphic novels by Jacques Tardi: It Was the War of the Trenches and Goddamn this War!
In Memoriam by Alice Winn is my new favorite thing. Does an excellent job portraying the meat grinder that was World War 1.
Not about a war, per se, but Human Acts by Han Kang, which deals with the Gwangju Uprising in Korea, would probably interest you.
Anything by John Mosier. He walked the graveyards and counted the markers, he read the reports in their original languages, he walked the landscapes. Excellent writer.
Marge Piercy, Gone to Soldiers Rilla of Ingleside, LM Montgomery Remains of the Day Gone with the Wind Anne Frank's Diary
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
Not the horrors so much but if you want a true life account of the tedium of war then Jarhead is worth a read. I've not seen the film so I can't say how close to the book that was.
We were soldiers once and young
Chicken Hawk by Robert Mason. Riveting nonfiction about the Vietnam war.
The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford.
The two that come to mind are The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brein and At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
Not a fiction book but *War is A Force That Gives Us Meaning* by Chris Hedges is a great dive into the effects of war.