12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

February 3 2016
Share 12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

Editor’s Note: Matt Gallagher’s first novel, Youngblood, about the Iraq War has recently been published by Atria Books. You can watch a video about the inspiration for Youngblood here. We asked him to reflect on what war novels move him.

 

That war stories must occur in strange lands far from home, filled with bullets and blood, remains a powerful fallacy. The consequences and effects of war can’t be contained so neatly. Stories of war are stories of love, stories of loss and longing, stories of hope. Stories of war are stories of before and after, of inheritance and memory. The best stories of war are so much more than stories of armed conflict. They are stories of humanity.

Here are twelve novels of war that explore exactly that.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider
by Katherine Anne Porter

While detailing the influenza outbreak of Denver in 1918, PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER also conveys the waste and horror of the World War I trenches half a world away. A young, skeptical journalist meets a lieutenant about to ship out overseas, and they decide to navigate the madness of home-front America together.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo iBooks logo
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
Katherine Anne Porter

While detailing the influenza outbreak of Denver in 1918, PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER also conveys the waste and horror of the World War I trenches half a world away. A young, skeptical journalist meets a lieutenant about to ship out overseas, and they decide to navigate the madness of home-front America together.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close
Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier

Winner of the National Book Award, this historical retelling of The Odyssey transplants the classic myth to the American South near the end of the Civil War. A perilous journey across a war-ravaged landscape explores the timeless theme of homecoming at the close of America’s most devastating war.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Cold Mountain
Charles Frazier

Winner of the National Book Award, this historical retelling of The Odyssey transplants the classic myth to the American South near the end of the Civil War. A perilous journey across a war-ravaged landscape explores the timeless theme of homecoming at the close of America’s most devastating war.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Excited for the Hot New Books of Spring? Read These 12 Favorite Novels First!

By Taylor Noel | February 16, 2018

12 Oscar Nominated Films You Never Knew Were Based on Books

By Julianna Haubner | February 23, 2016

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close
Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie deftly examines matters of identity and African politics through a wide variety of characters, such as the sophisticate Olanna, the village boy Ugwu, and the British expat Richard. All the while, the Republic of Biafra rises and falls.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s is brought to life through the voices of five unforgettable characters. Among them is Ugwu, a houseboy who comes to his master a naive child and ends the novel a wary ex-soldier. As war drags on and the differences between Ugwu and the once-privileged family he serves shrink, their shared, raw humanity is all that remains.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

17 Amazing Books Featured in the “Fahrenheit 451” Movie

By Sarah Jane Abbott | July 19, 2018

Take a Look, It’s In a Book: Off the Shelf’s Own Reading Rainbow

By Erin Madison | January 4, 2018

5 Nigerian Authors You Need to Read

By Tolani Osan | September 28, 2017

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

14 Must-Read Books Set Under the African Sun

By Emma Volk | January 12, 2016

11 Literary Servants Tell Their Own Stories

By Emma Volk | August 18, 2015

Close
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
by Ben Fountain

A luminous and savage depiction of post-9/11 America, as experienced by one young war hero attending a Dallas Cowboys game.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Ben Fountain

A luminous and savage depiction of post-9/11 America, as experienced by one young war hero attending a Dallas Cowboys game.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Pass the Popcorn: 10 Books to Read Before They Hit the Big Screen

By Julianna Haubner | August 11, 2016

13 Powerful Books for Our Political Leaders

By Off the Shelf Staff | February 9, 2016

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close
Democracy
by Joan Didion

To call this a Vietnam novel would be both accurate and far too constraining. Set against the backdrop of the Fall of Saigon, DEMOCRACY chronicles an ill-fated romance and the beginning of the end of the American empire.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Democracy
Joan Didion

To call this a Vietnam novel would be both accurate and far too constraining. Set against the backdrop of the Fall of Saigon, DEMOCRACY chronicles an ill-fated romance and the beginning of the end of the American empire.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close
The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini

A contemporary classic. While the complex Afghan social structure and Soviet invasion give this novel its framework, its resonance derives from a lost friendship and a deeply personal quest for redemption.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini

Set against the backdrop of tumultuous, war-torn Afghanistan, THE KITE RUNNER is an unforgettable and heartbreaking story of friendship, family, and redemption.

 

Listen to clip of the audiobook:

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

9 Beautiful Novels That Will Inspire You to Be a Better Person

By Keturah Jenkins | October 7, 2019

8 Touching Books That Will Make You Cry Like a Baby

By Off the Shelf Staff | September 17, 2019

15 Stories of Betrayal to Read for the Ides of March

By Taylor Noel | March 15, 2017

13 Banned Books That Will Always Have a Place on Our Shelves

By Off the Shelf Staff | September 29, 2016

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

10 Cross-Cultural Novels that Illuminate the World We Live In

By Tolani Osan | September 24, 2015

Close
Girl at War
by Sara Nović

One young woman’s journey through the savageness and ruin of the Balkans in the 1990s, something that the West tried so hard for too long to ignore.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Girl at War
Sara Nović

One young woman’s journey through the savageness and ruin of the Balkans in the 1990s, something that the West tried so hard for too long to ignore.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

14 Books by Diverse Authors You Need to Read Right Now

By Taylor Noel | May 8, 2017

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close
Paradise
by Toni Morrison

Beginning with one of literature’s most famous openings—“They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.”—Morrison weaves layers and layers of macrohistory into the story of one small all-black town in Oklahoma—including the far-reaching legacy of the Vietnam War.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Paradise
Toni Morrison

Beginning with one of literature’s most famous openings—“They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.”—Morrison weaves layers and layers of macrohistory into the story of one small all-black town in Oklahoma—including the far-reaching legacy of the Vietnam War.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close
Revolutionary Road
by Richard Yates

An evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs, Revolutionary Road is perhaps literature’s most penetrating portrait of the Mad Men era. The story of a couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner, Richard Yates demonstrates with heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity how Frank and April betray not only each other, but their best selves.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

An evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs, Revolutionary Road is perhaps literature’s most penetrating portrait of the Mad Men era. The story of a couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner, Richard Yates demonstrates with heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity how Frank and April betray not only each other, but their best selves.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

14 Favorite Books on Bestselling Author Jenna Blum’s Bookshelf

By Jenna Blum | June 27, 2018

We Love Leo: 12 Books Leonardo DiCaprio Brought to the Silver Screen

By Tolani Osan | February 24, 2017

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

The Mad Men Book Club

By Off the Shelf Staff | April 7, 2015

Close
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway

A boy’s book about drinking and partying? Hardly. Narrator Jake Barnes, suffering from what we’d now call PTSD, grapples for purpose in a postwar world, while Lady Brett Ashley defies societal restrictions time and time again.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway's first bestselling novel, it is the story of a group of 'Lost Generation' Americans and Brits in the 1920's on a sojourn from Paris to Pamploma, Spain. The novel poignantly details their life as expatriates on Paris' Left Bank, and conveys the brutality of bullfighting in Spain. The novel established Hemingway as one of the great prose stylists of all time.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
Close
Regeneration
by Pat Barker

The Booker Prize-winning first book in the brilliant trilogy that examines and skewers the madness of the war by telling as fiction the true story of poet and officer Siegfried Sassoon, who upon declaring he would not fight was sent to a mental hospital for "shell-shocked" soldiers where he was treated by noted psychiatrist Dr. William Rivers. Sassoon's complete sanity disturbs Dr. Rivers to such a point that he questions his own role in "curing" his patients only to send them back to the slaughter of the war. Read the first book and you will have to read the rest.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Regeneration
Pat Barker

The Booker Prize-winning first book in the brilliant trilogy that examines and skewers the madness of the war by telling as fiction the true story of poet and officer Siegfried Sassoon, who upon declaring he would not fight was sent to a mental hospital for "shell-shocked" soldiers where he was treated by noted psychiatrist Dr. William Rivers. Sassoon's complete sanity disturbs Dr. Rivers to such a point that he questions his own role in "curing" his patients only to send them back to the slaughter of the war. Read the first book and you will have to read the rest.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

Author Picks: 4 Historical Fiction Reads Based on True Events

By Jess Kidd | October 17, 2022

Remembering World War I With 5 Monumental Books

By Nick Dybek | November 12, 2018

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Some Desperate Glory: 9 Novels Reveal The Loves, Loses, and Lives of WWI

By Off the Shelf Staff | July 29, 2014

Close
In Country
by Bobbie Ann Mason

Set in rural Kentucky more than a decade after the end of the Vietnam War, Sam Hughes— the teenage daughter of a soldier who didn’t make it home—seeks out meaning and purpose from the war that took her father.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo
In Country
Bobbie Ann Mason

Set in rural Kentucky more than a decade after the end of the Vietnam War, Sam Hughes— the teenage daughter of a soldier who didn’t make it home—seeks out meaning and purpose from the war that took her father.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo

MENTIONED IN:

11 Powerful Books That Explore the Legacy of the Vietnam War

By Erica Nelson | May 26, 2016

12 Powerful War Novels that Transcend War

By Matt Gallagher | February 3, 2016

Close

You must be logged in to add books to your shelf.

Please log in or sign up now.