Great anti-war tomes.

[HuckleB]

I know this has been done here before, probably ad nauseum. However, I just spent the weekend at the Northwest Bookfest in Seattle, and enjoyed a wonderful panel titled Survivor of War: Perspectives on Human Conflict.

Each panelist offered a compelling current book. I have already read Anthony Swofford's "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles," and I heartily recommend it. In addition, I will recommend "Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford On Peace and War," edited by his son Kim Stafford, "The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire" (this one is simply amazing, a tale of a Chechen surgeon's experience during the two Russian-Chechan wars of the 1990s. it is beautifully written with both harrowing and insightful specifics and perspective.) by Khassan Baiev, and "Canal House," a novel by war correspondent Mark Lee.

OK. That's it for me. More when I get farther into these.

[Coventina]

1. All Quiet on the Western Front n/t

[Wolfman 11]

2. Interesting

that the most widely read war books were written by those who actually fought in wars or were part of them in some way, and are nearly always antiwar.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
anything by Heinrich Boll

etc. etc.

[dofus]

3. Don't forget

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.

A truly strange movie was made from it in the 70's. Read the book instead.