Celebrate National Military Appreciation Month: Inspiring Adult Fiction and Nonfiction Reads

Updated March 25, 2026
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American Heroes: From the #1 Bestselling Authors of Walk in My Combat Boots
Patterson, James
Paper Book
A #1 national bestseller from the authors of Walk in My Combat Boots, celebrate the devotion and sacrifices of our nation's bravest heroes with this collection of stories from those serving in the line of duty. U.S. soldiers who served in overseas conflicts-...
Billy Lynn's long halftime walk
Fountain, Ben
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and a finalist for the National Book Award "Brilliantly done . . . grand, intimate, and joyous." --New York Times Book Review From the PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of the critically acclaimed short story collection,...
Black Hawk down : a story of modern war
Bowden, Mark
Paper Book
Recounts a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, that resulted in the deaths of eighteen Americans and more than five hundred Somalis, examining the rationales behind the disastrous raid.
Blind tiger
Brown, Sandra
Paper Book
From a New York Times bestselling author, a war-weary soldier jumps from a moving freight train to avoid trouble-and lands in more than he bargained for. On the day Thatcher Hutton arrives in Foley, Texas, a local woman goes missing. Thatcher becomes the...
Ceremony
Silko, Leslie Marmon
Paper Book
A Penguin Vitae edition of the great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit, with a foreword by bestselling author Tommy Orange A Penguin Classic Hardcover More than 45 years after its original publication, Ceremony<...
Code girls : the untold story of the American women code breakers of World War II
Mundy, Liza
Paper Book
The award-winning New York Times bestseller about the American women who secretly served as codebreakers during World War II--a "prodigiously researched and engrossing" (New York Times) book that "shines a light on a hidden chapter of American history" (Denver Post).
The Country Under Heaven
Durbin, Frederic S.
Paper Book
Set in the 1880s, the story follows Ovid Vesper, a former Union soldier who has been having enigmatic visions after an explosion at the Battle of Antietam. As he travels across the country following those visions, he finds himself in stranger and increasingly more dangerous encounters with other...
Dark Frontier
Harffy, Matthew
Paper Book
A thrilling historical western set in 1890s Oregon, from the author of the critically acclaimed Bernicia Chronicles. An English soldier turned police officer escapes to the American West for a new life, but things in Oregon prove far harder than he expected. A man can...
Grunt : the curious science of humans at war
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries--panic, exhaustion, heat, noise--and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and...
How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying : Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko's Fight for Ukraine
Marlowe, Lara
Paper Book
Publishing on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine: The gripping, heartrending story, told in her own words, of a formidable 29-year-old woman serving as a commander on the front lines of the War in Ukraine -- and an intimate, hair-raising look at modern warfare . . . ...
Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien
Vernon, Alex
Paper Book
The first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original interviews. "Vietnam made me a writer." --Tim O'Brien ...
The River We Remember
Krueger, William Kent
Paper Book
AN EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE In 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by a shocking murder, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling novel, an instant New York Times bestseller and "a work of art" (The Denver Post). On Memorial Day...
Same bed different dreams : a novel
Park, Ed
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present--loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media "Your view of twentieth-century...
Shoot like a girl : one woman's dramatic fight in Afghanistan and on the home front
Hegar, Mary Jennings.
Paper Book
"A must-read about an American patriot whose courage and determination will have a lasting impact on the future of our Armed Forces and the nation."--Senator John McCain On July 29, 2009, Air National Guard major Mary Jennings "MJ" Hegar was shot down while on a Medevac...
Soldier girls : the battles of three women at home and at war
Thorpe, Helen
Paper Book
From an award-winning, "meticulously observant" (The New Yorker), and "masterful" (Booklist) writer comes a groundbreaking account of three women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and how their military service affected their friendship, their personal lives, and their families. ...
The things they carried : a work of fiction
O'Brien, Tim
Paper Book
One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of...
Valiant Women : The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
Andrews, Lena S.
Paper Book
National Bestseller * Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies' victory, hailed as "an ingenious look at WWII" (Publishers Weekly,...
Walk in my combat boots : true stories from America's bravest warriors
Patterson, James
Paper Book
Discover "the stories America needs to hear" (Admiral William H. McRaven, US Navy (Ret.)) with these moving and powerful recollections of war, told by the men and women who lived them. Walk in my Combat Boots is a powerful collection crafted...
What feasts at night
Kingfisher, T.
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller A Barnes & Noble Best Horror Book of 2024 A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee Enter a cold, silent forest and find out what feasts at night in this new gothic tale...
The Wives
Gorrindo, Simone
Paper Book
"[Simone] Gorrindo's prose is inviting and fluid, and her storytelling is intimate and vivid...[an] engaging, evocative memoir." --The New York Times Book Review "A hopeful, unifying memoir." --People This profoundly intimate memoir...
The women
Hannah, Kristin
Paper Book
A #1 bestseller on The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times! From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women--at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a...
The women with silver wings
Landdeck, Katherine Sharp
Paper Book
"With the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, women pilots went aloft to serve their nation. . . . A soaring tale in which, at long last, these daring World War II pilots gain the credit they deserve."--Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code...
You are worth it : building a life worth fighting for
Carpenter, Kyle
Paper Book
The youngest living Medal of Honor recipient delivers an unforgettable memoir that "will inspire every reader" (Jim Mattis) NATIONAL BESTSELLER | A Marine Commandant's Reading List selection On November 21, 2010, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Kyle Carpenter was...

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