There's a Book for That: Memorial Day
On Monday, May 25th, we pay tribute to the Americans who have died in service to our country. Memorial Day, originally known as “Decoration Day,” began in 1868 after the Civil War as a time for citizens to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers and flags. It became an official federal holiday in 1971. To honor the occasion we have curated the following titles in commemoration of the service and sacrifice of our nation’s military as well as journalists covering warzones.
After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she flew to a remote island off the coast of Australia to finally give herself time to mourn.
Based on the celebrated PBS television series
In this intimate history, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns have crafted a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. From the Gulf of Tonkin and the Tet Offensive to Hamburger Hill and the fall of Saigon, Ward and Burns trace the conflict that dogged three American presidents and their advisers. But most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of Vietnam as it really was.
In 2009, Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of the Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost (COP) Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the US military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing fourteen-hour battle—and eventual victory—cost eight men their lives. Red Platoon is the riveting firsthand account of the Battle of Keating, told by Romesha, who spearheaded both the defense of the outpost and the counterattack that drove the Taliban back beyond the wire and received the Medal of Honor for his actions.
In 2002, Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and became an icon of American patriotism. When he was killed in Afghanistan two years later, a legend was born. But the real Pat Tillman was much more remarkable, and considerably more complicated than the public knew. Drawing on Tillman’s journals and letters and countless interviews with those who knew him and extensive research in Afghanistan, Jon Krakauer chronicles Tillman’s riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death.
An estimated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today’s population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War’s most fundamental and widely shared reality.
Unrivaled in its range and intensity, the poetry of World War I continues to have a powerful effect on readers. This newly edited anthology reflects the diverse experiences of those who lived through the war, bringing together the words of poets, soldiers, and civilians affected by the conflict. Here are famous verses by Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen; poetry by women writing from the home front; and the anonymous lyrics of soldiers’ songs. Arranged thematically, the selections take the reader through the war’s stages, from conscription to its aftermath, and offer a blend of voices that is both unique and profoundly moving.
Among the autobiographies of great military figures, Ulysses S. Grant’s is certainly one of the finest, and it is arguably the most notable literary achievement of any American president: a lucid, compelling, and brutally honest chronicle of triumph and failure. From his frontier boyhood to his heroics in battle to the grinding poverty from which the Civil War ironically “rescued” him, these memoirs are a mesmerizing, deeply moving account of a brilliant man, told with great courage as he reflects on the fortunes that shaped his life and his character. Written under excruciating circumstances (as Grant was dying of throat cancer), encouraged and edited from its very inception by Mark Twain, it is a triumph of the art of autobiography.
A brilliant and poignant history of the friendship between two great war poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, alongside a narrative investigation of the origins of PTSD and the literary response to World War I. Drawing on rich source materials, as well as Glass’s own deep understanding of trauma and war, Soldiers Don’t Go Mad tells for the first time the story of the soldiers and doctors who struggled with the effects of industrial warfare on the human psyche…As he investigates the roots of what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, Glass brings historical bearing to how we must consider war’s ravaging effects on mental health, and the ways in which creative work helps us come to terms with even the darkest of times.
Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction
The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and courage that tells the story of the special Japanese American Army unit that overcame brutal odds in Europe; their families, incarcerated back home; and a young man who refused to surrender his constitutional rights, even if it meant imprisonment. “Propulsive and gripping, in part because of Mr. Brown’s ability to make us care deeply about the fates of these individual soldiers…a page-turner.” – The Wall Street Journal
Hampton Sides’ superb account of this epic clash relies on years of archival research, unpublished letters, declassified documents, and interviews with scores of Marines and Koreans who survived the siege. While expertly detailing the follies of the American leaders, On Desperate Ground is an immediate, grunt’s-eye view of history, enthralling in its narrative pace and powerful in its portrayal of what ordinary men are capable of in the most extreme circumstances.
The American Revolution is often portrayed as an orderly, restrained rebellion, with brave patriots defending their noble ideals against an oppressive empire. It’s a stirring narrative, and one the founders did their best to encourage after the war. But as historian Holger Hoock shows in this deeply researched and elegantly written account of America’s founding, the Revolution was not only a high-minded battle over principles, but also a profoundly violent civil war—one that shaped the nation, and the British Empire, in ways we have only begun to understand.
Rare stories from more than 250 years of Native Americans’ service in the military
Why We Serve commemorates the 2020 opening of the National Native American Veterans Memorial at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the first landmark in Washington, DC, to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of Native veterans. American Indians’ history of military service dates to colonial times, and today, they serve at one of the highest rates of any ethnic group. Why We Serve explores the range of reasons why, from love of their home to an expression of their warrior traditions.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
New York Times bestseller, now adapted for young readers, Flags of Our Fathers is the unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history: the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima.
Adapted for young adults from the New York Times bestseller, a riveting and true WWII story of a young man–an American tank gunner–who meets his destiny in an iconic armor duel and forges an enduring bond with his enemy.
Winner of the National Book Award
In March 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops into Vietnam. 57,939 American soldiers would be killed and seventeen years would pass before this controversial chapter of American history concluded with the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982. The history of this era is complex, but it’s the personal stories of eight people—six American soldiers, one American nurse, and one Vietnamese refugee—that form the heartbeat of Boots on the Ground. From dense jungles and terrifying firefights to chaotic medic rescues and evacuations, each individual’s story reveals a different facet of the war and moves us forward in time.
For more on these and related titles visit the collection, Memorial Day 2026
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