Military Reads

Told as a retrospective narrative after the narrator, Bart (John Bartle’s), part in the Iraq war is over, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, published in 2012 and Finalist for the National Book Award, begins with Bart and the rest of his platoon holding a position atop a building outside of a town called Al Tafar, Iraq, the locale at the novel’s center. Over the course of the novel, subsequent chapters will move backward and... Read The Yellow Birds Summary

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The Zookeeper’s Wife, by Diane AckermanThe Zookeeper’s Wife is a non-fiction narrative recounting the heroic efforts of Antonina Żabińska and her husband, Jan Żabiński, during World War II. When soldiers of the Third Reich invade Poland on September 1, 1939, Jan is the ambitious director of the Warsaw Zoo. Antonina is an amazingly gifted woman who connects emotionally with all the animals in the zoo and the multitudes of human visitors and officials drawn to... Read The Zookeeper's Wife Summary

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Thin Wood Walls by David Patneaude was published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 2004. A historical fiction novel for young adult readers, Thin Wood Walls explores the experience of incarceration through the eyes of an 11-year-old Japanese American boy during World War II. The novel depicts themes of hope, family, resilience, and xenophobia, or bigotry against individuals from other countries. Thin Wood Walls is a Washington Reads Selection and a Mark Twain Award nominee. It... Read Thin Wood Walls Summary

Thirteen Days is Robert Kennedy’s personal account of the Cuban missile crisis.As the Attorney General of the United States and President’s Kennedy’s brother and most trusted confidant, Robert Kennedy played a significant role in that critical period. The first-person narrative is organized into titled sections, rather than chapters, and proceeds chronologically, describing the meetings, conversations, developments, and decisions that shaped the American response to the crisis.The chronicle begins on the morning of Tuesday, October 16... Read Thirteen Days Summary

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This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War is a nonfiction book published in 2008 by Drew Gilpin Faust, an American historian and the first woman to serve as president of Harvard University. A finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, This Republic of Suffering details how mass death affected the lives of survivors during and after the Civil War. Other works by Drew Gilpin Faust include Mothers of... Read This Republic of Suffering Summary

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Three Day Road is a harrowing war narrative that details the interconnected lives of several Cree Indians during World War One. Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack are best friends who have lived as bush Indians for most of their lives. They live with Xavier’s aunt, Niska, who has taught Xavier how to live in the old ways. Xavier, in turn, has shown Elijah. One day, the boys hear about a great war taking place in... Read Three Day Road Summary

Book DetailsTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) is a thriller written by John Le Carré. It is the first entry in a series of books called the Karla trilogy, followed by The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley's People (1979). The trilogy features an aging spy named George Smiley and has been adapted into television and radio shows as well as a feature film. Author DetailsJohn Le Carré is the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell, a... Read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Summary

To Live, a 1993 realist novel by renowned Chinese author Yu Hua, traces the struggles of protagonist Fugui and his family. Instead of using traditional chapters, the novel is broken into italicized and non-italicized sections based on whether Fugui or his unnamed interlocutor is narrating. Spanning over four decades of modern Chinese history, including the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists (1945-49), the founding of the People’s Republic... Read To Live Summary

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging is a 2016 non-fiction book by Sebastian Junger. This guide is based on the 2016 first-edition hardback published in New York by Twelve/Hachette Book Group. Junger is a journalist, essayist, filmmaker, and best-selling author whose writing about dangerous work and the people who perform it has been credited with stimulating the “adventure non-fiction” genre. His first book, Perfect Storm: A True Story About Men Against the Sea, about six fishermen... Read Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging Summary

Troilus and Cressida (1602) by William Shakespeare is one of his lesser-known works, often categorized as a “problem play” due to its ambiguous tone that blends elements of tragedy, comedy, and history. Set against the backdrop of the Trojan War, the play traces the doomed love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Cressida, whose loyalty is tested when she is traded to the Greeks. Through its themes of infidelity, romantic disenchantment, and the futility... Read Troilus and Cressida Summary

Troilus and Criseyde is an epic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer written between 1382 and 1386 in Middle English. The poem is divided into five books and features Chaucer’s innovation, the Rhyme royal stanza form, which is a seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter with an ABABBCC rhyme scheme. The poem is set during the Trojan War and tells the tragic story of Troilus, a prince of Troy who falls in love with a young woman named... Read Troilus and Criseyde Summary

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is a biography by Laura Hillenbrand that tells the life story of Louie Zamperini, an Italian-American from Torrance, California who lived from 1917 to 2014. Published in 2010, Unbroken was a The New York Times bestseller for over four years.Plot SummaryIn his youth, Louie Zamperini was the town troublemaker, a boy who used his cunning to commit acts of petty theft and public nuisance... Read Unbroken Summary

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Content Warning: This study guide and the memoir contain references to antisemitism and violence, as well as descriptions of conditions in a concentration camp during the Nazi holocaust. Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, a memoir by Heda Margolius Kovály, was first published under this title in 1986. The memoir was originally published in Czech as Na vlastní kůži (On your own skin) in 1973, by 68 Publishers, an independent press operated... Read Under a Cruel Star Summary