In honor of those who have served—and are serving—in our behalf, a booklist. Not so much for vets to read, but for those of us who have not been to war, so that we may better appreciate the experience of those who have.
Below are 6 of my favorites in no particular order. If you have your own, please list them.
The Things They Carried by Tim Obrien
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo
War by Sebastian Junger
Dispatches by Michael Herr
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Photo from the excellent feature-length documentary film Restrepo, co-directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington. A remarkably gifted photojournalist who was committed to covering, at the deepest level he could manage, the experience of American service people and others who fight their country’s wars, Hetherington was killed in April of this year while covering the conflict in Libya,
Second that.
Read Tree of Smoke a few months back. Amazing in conception and execution. Still think about it almost on a daily basis.
And Matterhorn just added to my shopping list.
I kinda worship Denis Johnson’s writing. Tree of Smoke haunted me for a long time after too. The opening still haunts me—you know, the scene in which the jittery 18-year-old soldier, without thinking, shoots to death a tiny monkey and likely in that moment—although we don’t know it yet and he doesn’t either—forever pulls the pin on his ability to find in himself a livable center. Devastating.
I think you’ll like Matterhorn. As Junger said when he reviewed it for the NY Times, “It’s not a book so much as a deployment…”