Military Reads

Cynthia Kadohata’s Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam is a work of historical fiction that centers around a dog, Cracker, and her handler, Rick Hanski, during their deployment in Vietnam. It is aimed at an audience of middle-grade readers but is also an enjoyable and educational read for adults. Told from the perspective of both the canine and human main characters, Kadohata reveals the vitally important work conducted by military dogs and their handlers during... Read Cracker Summary

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Carol Matas is the author of the 1993 novel for young readers, Daniel’s Story, and she published the book in conjunction with the United States Holocaust Museum Memorial exhibit Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story. Like the museum exhibit, Daniel’s Story presents a researched account of what it was like to grow up in Nazi Germany and live through the Holocaust. Before she wrote Daniel’s Story, Matas published two historical novels about the Dutch resistance during... Read Daniel's Story Summary

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Days Without End (2016) is a novel by Irish author Sebastian Barry. Days Without End is Barry’s ninth novel and received considerable critical acclaim. The novel won the 2017 Walter Scott Prize, was listed at number 74 on The Guardian’s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century (2019 edition), and made BBC News’s 2019 list of the 100 most influential novels. The novel also won the 2016 Costa Book Award, making Barry... Read Days Without End Summary

In Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, writer Erik Larson traces the Lusitania’s final journey across the Atlantic Ocean. The Lusitania is a British passenger liner owned by the Cunard Steamship Company. First sailing in 1907, the Lusitania quickly sets records for the fastest journey across the Atlantic Ocean, stealing the coveted Blue Riband away from Germany.Dead Wake follows the Lusitania’s final journey, which took place during the first week of May 1915... Read Dead Wake Summary

Dear John is a novel published in 2006 by Nicholas Sparks, a best-selling American romance writer. In 2010, the book was adapted into a feature film starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. Dear John tells the story of star-crossed lovers: John Tyree, a soldier on leave, falls for Savannah Lynn Curtis, a visiting college student. After 9/11, John must choose between duty to his country and the people who love him, both of whom he... Read Dear John Summary

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The narrator and protagonist, Sergeant Nathan Marx, sets the stage in the early paragraphs of the short story. The year is 1945, and he has just arrived to Camp Crowder, Missouri, after fighting in the war in Germany. Marx explains that he has undergone significant changes since his time as a combatant began, and he describes his transformation as beneficial: “I had been fortunate enough to develop an infantryman’s heart, which, like his feet, at... Read Defender Of The Faith Summary

Desert Exile tells the story of the author Yoshiko Uchida and the Uchida family’s experience as Japanese-Americans interned in concentration camps by the U.S. government after the Pearl Harbor attacks during World War II. The book follows a linear narrative arc that details the Uchidas’ experience, while Uchida often reflects discursively, using one point in her life as a vortex for connecting that moment to another memory and in turn creating a larger impression of... Read Desert Exile Summary

Diplomacy (1994) is a book by the scholar and diplomat Henry Kissinger. After leaving the government in 1977, Kissinger wrote a series of memoirs such as White House Years (1979) and Years of Upheaval (1982). Diplomacy was the first of what would be many books offering a broader view of international affairs and US foreign policy. It has lessons for policymakers but is also accessible to general readers. The book received many positive reviews for... Read Diplomacy Summary

First published in 1977, Dispatches is Michael Herr’s account of his time spent as a war correspondent in Vietnam. The conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia started on November 1, 1955. President Kennedy escalated U.S. involvement in 1961, followed by President Johnson, who committed even more resources and men in 1963. 58,220 U.S. soldiers and approximately 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives during the conflict. Michael Herr was a correspondent for Esquire Magazine... Read Dispatches Summary

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Introduction Doctor Zhivago is a 1957 novel by Russian author Boris Pasternak. Set during the early 20th century, the story follows the titular Yuri Zhivago as he deals with revolution and social upheaval in his native country. As well as being widely praised following its publication, the novel has been adapted numerous times for the screen, most famously in a 1965 film—for which Pasternak cowrote the screenplay—directed by David Lean and starring Omar Sharif and Julie... Read Doctor Zhivago Summary

Among Wilfred Owen’s most famous poems, “Dulce et Decorum Est” was written in 1917 while he was in Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland, recovering from injuries sustained on the battlefield during World War I. The poem details the death of a soldier from chlorine gas told by another soldier who witnesses his gruesome end. Owen himself died in action on November 4, 1918 in France at the age of 25. He published only five poems... Read Dulce et Decorum est Summary

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“Editha,” by American realist writer William Dean Howells, is a short story first published in 1905. Realism refers to a mode of late 19th-century literature in which authors shunned romanticism and idealization in favor of realistic portrayals of everyday life. Realist literature contains the complex characterization and examination of social mores, often of the middle class. “Editha” is an example of realist literature in that it criticizes the romanticizing of life experiences, specifically of war... Read Editha Summary

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a nonfiction book by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. In 1961, Arendt went to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann for The New Yorker, an assignment she gave herself because “she felt she simply had to attend the trial; she owed it to herself as a social critic, displaced person, witness, and survivor” (xi). Eichmann, a Nazi facilitator of... Read Eichmann in Jerusalem Summary

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