Military Reads

English poet and classicist Robert Graves wrote his autobiography, Good-Bye to All That, in 1929, at the age of 34. Graves undertook the writing of his autobiography with the hope of crafting a best-selling book that would support his career as a writer. Good-Bye to All That details Graves’s life from his upper-middle-class childhood in England to his service as a military officer in World War I, and on to his first few years as... Read Goodbye to All That Summary

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Goodnight Mister Tom is a work of historical fiction written by Michelle Magorian and published in 1981. The novel is aimed at an audience of middle grade readers. It tells the story of eight-year-old William Beech, who, at the start of WWII, has to move with his abusive mother from an impoverished suburb of London to the countryside, where they are in the care of an elderly recluse, Thomas Oakley. The novel explores the impact... Read Goodnight Mister Tom Summary

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Gravity’s Rainbow is a 1973 historical satire by American novelist Thomas Pynchon, who is known for complex narratives that are often dense, fragmented, and episodic. The story is set during the last days of World War II as characters search for a mysterious rocket developed by the German military. The novel has been hailed as one of the most important English language works of the 20th century.Pynchon, disinclined to engage with the press or public... Read Gravity's Rainbow Summary

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Published in 2011, Half-Blood Blues is the second book by Esi Edugyan, a black Canadian author. The novel won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2012 and was also shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. As historical fiction, the story examines the lives of a diverse group of jazz musicians during World War II as they balance personal jealousies with the need to help each other amid mounting... Read Half-Blood Blues Summary

Chimamanda Adichie’s second book, Half of a Yellow Sun, is set during the Nigerian Civil War that tragically occurred in her home country during the 1960s. The story masterfully revolves around an intricate web of shifting viewpoints, each of which centers around one of the novel’s five main characters: Ugwu, Odenigbo, Olanna, Kainene, and Richard. All of these characters find themselves affiliated with the Biafran rebels of the war, and this affiliation eventually has consequences... Read Half of a Yellow Sun Summary

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Originally published in 2002 by Second Story Press, Hana’s Suitcase is a historical text by Karen Levine that weaves together the story of two young children in the Holocaust with the narrative of a Japanese museum curator in the early 21st century. Levine, a radio journalist and producer, first heard about Hana Brady’s suitcase from a news article and subsequently produced a radio show about the story. This launched what would become Hana’s Suitcase and... Read Hana's Suitcase Summary

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High Tide in Tucson is a series of essays by heralded American novelist Barbara Kingsolver, collected and published in 1995. The essays are wide-ranging in subject matter, addressing topics from politics, to nature, to midcentury domestic life, but all reflect Kingsolver’s observations about herself and the people around her. Prior to her writing career, Kingsolver had a wide range of other professional experiences that influence essays in the book.Most of the essays in High Tide... Read High Tide in Tucson Summary

Hiroshima, an account of the first atomic bomb used in warfare, is a nonfiction book by John Hersey. Alfred A. Knopf published it in 1946, several months after it first appeared as an article in the New Yorker. The magazine ran the article at the end of August 1946, just after the first anniversary of the dropping of the bomb, devoting the entire issue to the lengthy piece. The issue sold out immediately and was... Read Hiroshima Summary

The History of the Peloponnesian War, also known as Histories, recounts the war between the Athenian alliance (called the Delian League by modern historians) and Sparta and its allies (called the Peloponnesian League by modern historians), which took place from 431-404 BC. Composed in the 5th century BC by Thucydides (c. 460-400), it is the first attempt to apply empirical research and analysis to understanding contemporaneous human events. For this reason, the text is inextricably... Read History of the Peloponnesian War Summary

First published in 2012, Home, written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, tells the story of Frank Money, a 24-year-old black Korean War veteran who is summoned to Atlanta, Georgia, to rescue his sister, Cee. He receives a note that reads “‘Come fast. She be dead if you tarry’” (8) from an unknown woman. The main story of the novel begins with Frank’s escape from a hospital’s mental health ward. He was put in the ward... Read Home Summary