Fans pick 94 books like A Bright Shining Lie

By Neil Sheehan,

Here are 94 books that A Bright Shining Lie fans have personally recommended if you like A Bright Shining Lie. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of All the President's Men

Robert Ledger and Peter Finn Author Of The Official Record: Oversight, National Security and Democracy

From my list on democracy and secrecy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I (Robert) am primarily interested in modern British history. During my postgraduate studies, I worked mainly with government papers that had just been declassified. Like many historians, I enjoy unraveling the mystery that archival research offers and shedding light on forgotten or unheard stories. Meanwhile, Peter, my co-author, is passionate about the intersection between national security and human rights. He developed this interest during his PhD research, which examined the institutionalization of torture during the Iraq War. This research relied heavily on documents released via freedom of information requests and leaks, both of which are relevant to our book on the Official Record. 

Robert's book list on democracy and secrecy

Robert Ledger and Peter Finn Why did Robert love this book?

One of the defining accounts of the original political scandal, Watergate, ultimately brought down US President Richard Nixon; Bernstein and Woodward’s book (later superbly adapted as a film starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford) is partly so intriguing because it conveys the energy of a 1970s newsroom and the surprising level of access to the Nixon administration.

Ultimately, though, this book is still vital because it brings together several themes crucial in understanding the Official Record: secrecy and its corrosive impact on democracy, whistleblowers, perceived impunity, and the impact that determined and courageous journalists can exert on the powerful.

By Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked All the President's Men as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

50th Anniversary Edition—With a new foreword on what Watergate means today.

“The work that brought down a presidency...perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history” (Time)—from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Final Days.

The most devastating political detective story of the century: two Washington Post reporters, whose brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation smashed the Watergate scandal wide open, tell the behind-the-scenes drama the way it really happened.

One of Time magazine’s All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books, this is the book that changed America. Published just months before President Nixon’s resignation, All the President’s Men revealed the…


Book cover of The Quiet American

Matthew Masur Author Of Understanding and Teaching the Cold War

From my list on Cold War info that will keep you engaged.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of history who specializes in the United States and the Cold War. A large part of my job involves choosing books that are informative, but that the students will actually want to read. That means I often select novels, memoirs, and works of history that have compelling figures or an entertaining narrative. After more than twenty years of teaching, I’ve assigned many different books in my classes. These are the ones that my students enjoyed the most. 

Matthew's book list on Cold War info that will keep you engaged

Matthew Masur Why did Matthew love this book?

I find myself re-reading this book every few years. As someone who has visited Vietnam several times, I am particularly drawn to Greene’s vivid descriptions of the country in the early 1950s. The symbolism in the novel is not subtle: an older Brit and a younger American are rivals for the affection of a Vietnamese woman.

I find Greene’s depiction of Pyle, the American, to be especially striking: well-meaning but ultimately unaware of the damage he is doing to the country. 

By Graham Greene,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Quiet American as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Graham Greene's classic exploration of love, innocence, and morality in Vietnam

"I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused," Graham Greene's narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous "Quiet American" of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas.

As young Pyle's well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But…


Book cover of The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms And The CIA

John D. Marks Author Of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences

From my list on national security in the USA.

Why am I passionate about this?

John Marks is co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, a New York Times best-seller in hard-cover and paperback. He has written for the Washington Post, New York Times, Playboy, Foreign Policy, and Rolling Stone. He was the founder and long-time President of Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest peacebuilding organization that was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

John's book list on national security in the USA

John D. Marks Why did John love this book?

This is a great book about former CIA Director Richard Helms and the agency he directed.  Helms was the quintessential CIA man, and Powers tells the story of his 30-year career in spying in this beautifully written book, which somehow captures both Helms’ elusiveness and his essence.

By Thomas Powers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Man Who Kept the Secrets as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An account of the thirty-year career of the quintessential CIA man details his activities and attitudes as an intelligence agent and official and reveals--objectively and comprehensively--the workings of the CIA itself


If you love A Bright Shining Lie...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century

John D. Marks Author Of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences

From my list on national security in the USA.

Why am I passionate about this?

John Marks is co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, a New York Times best-seller in hard-cover and paperback. He has written for the Washington Post, New York Times, Playboy, Foreign Policy, and Rolling Stone. He was the founder and long-time President of Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest peacebuilding organization that was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

John's book list on national security in the USA

John D. Marks Why did John love this book?

Dick Holbrooke was a one-of-a-kind diplomat who, by force of his character, brought peace to Bosnia. He embodied still significant, but declining, American power in the post-Vietnam era, and this book brilliantly captures his character and his exploits.

By George Packer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Our Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From one of America's greatest non-fiction writers, an epic saga of the rise and fall of American power, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, told through the life of one man.

**WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2019**
**FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2020**

Richard Holbrooke was one of the most legendary and complicated figures in recent American history. Brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites, he was both admired and detested. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied…


Book cover of Reporter: A Memoir

Matthew Pressman Author Of On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News

From my list on power of the press to shape history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Journalism and history have been my dual obsessions since high school, and my work for the past 13 years has focused on the intersection between them. The pressures of journalism, its tremendous impact, and the extraordinary characters who tend to be drawn to the profession are endlessly fascinating to me. In my time as a PhD student, professor, researcher, and book review editor for an academic journal, I have read hundreds of books about American journalism and its past (maybe over 1,000 now that I think about it, but I haven’t kept count!). I’ve also reviewed several for the Washington Post. These are some of my favorites.

Matthew's book list on power of the press to shape history

Matthew Pressman Why did Matthew love this book?

I’ve read a lot of journalism memoirs, but I love this one because it is unapologetically a book for journalism junkies. Hersh—arguably the greatest investigative reporter of the past century—is matter-of-fact and unsentimental as he looks back on his impressive career.

It’s all about the work: the incredible lengths to which you need to go to expose the damaging secrets that powerful people want to keep hidden. Reading his account of how he got the story of the My Lai Massacre, my jaw was open the entire time in near-disbelief. 

By Seymour M. Hersh,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Reporter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Reporter is just wonderful. Truly a great life, and what shines out of the book, amid the low cunning and tireless legwork, is Hersh's warmth and humanity. Essential reading for every journalist and aspiring journalist the world over' John le Carre

In the early 1950s, teenage Seymour Hersh was finishing high school and university - while running the family's struggling dry cleaning store in a Southside Chicago ghetto. Today, he is one of America's premier investigative journalists, whose fearless reporting has earned him fame, front-page bylines in virtually every newspaper in the world, a staggering collection of awards, and no…


Book cover of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

G. Wayne Miller Author Of Unfit to Print: A Modern Media Satire

From my list on an important moment or time in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been passionate about journalism since I was a teenager, when I became the co-editor of my high school newspaper. My career as a full-time journalist began decades ago, at a small family-owned newspaper in Berkshire County, Mass., and continued through staff writer positions at The Cape Cod Times, Providence Journal and now at OceanStateStories.org, the new non-profit news outlet based at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center in Newport, R.I., that I co-founded and now direct. So I have the long and inside view of American journalism!

G.'s book list on an important moment or time in history

G. Wayne Miller Why did G. love this book?

This landmark book by the Iranian-American writer Azar Afisi is an account of the oppression of the Islamic Revolution in her native Iran and an ode to the liberating power of literature and truth.

In her book, Nafisi recounts the experiences of a group of students she worked with as a professor of English at the University of Tehran. She was dismissed from that professorship in 1981 for refusing to cover her hair and 16 years later, emigrated to America, where she teaches, writes, and is an internationally respected voice for press and personal freedoms.

By Azar Nafisi,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Reading Lolita in Tehran as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Azar Nafisi was fired from Tehran University (where she was teaching English literature) because she refused to wear a veil, she gathered a group of her female students and resumed her classes at home, privately and discreetly. There, a group of young women discussed, argued about and communed with Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Henry James, Nabokov and others in the canon of English writers. The surreal picture of reading "Lolita", weighing the sexuality of Jane Austen or the American authenticity of Gatsby in the severe aftermath of Iran's Islamic Revolution was not lost on either Nafisi or her students. The…


If you love Neil Sheehan...

Ad

Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor By FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan. The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…

Book cover of Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery

G. Wayne Miller Author Of Unfit to Print: A Modern Media Satire

From my list on an important moment or time in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been passionate about journalism since I was a teenager, when I became the co-editor of my high school newspaper. My career as a full-time journalist began decades ago, at a small family-owned newspaper in Berkshire County, Mass., and continued through staff writer positions at The Cape Cod Times, Providence Journal and now at OceanStateStories.org, the new non-profit news outlet based at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center in Newport, R.I., that I co-founded and now direct. So I have the long and inside view of American journalism!

G.'s book list on an important moment or time in history

G. Wayne Miller Why did G. love this book?

Washington Post staff writer Casey Parks, whose career has focused on stories about the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups, has penned an extraordinary book about growing up a lesbian in a Louisiana community where anyone who was LGBTQ+ was reviled and anyone identifying as such had to keep it a secret, with the resulting negative repercussions on self.

Diary of a Misfit took years to report and write, and it opens a stunning window into the past – and present, when LGBTQ+ individuals in many regions are discriminated against, the subject of hate-filled laws (“Don’t say gay”), and worse.

By Casey Parks,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Diary of a Misfit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life.

"Most moving is Parks’s depiction of a queer lineage, her assertion of an ancestry of outcasts, a tapestry of fellow misfits into which the marginalized will always, for better or…


Book cover of Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America's Heartland

G. Wayne Miller Author Of Unfit to Print: A Modern Media Satire

From my list on an important moment or time in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been passionate about journalism since I was a teenager, when I became the co-editor of my high school newspaper. My career as a full-time journalist began decades ago, at a small family-owned newspaper in Berkshire County, Mass., and continued through staff writer positions at The Cape Cod Times, Providence Journal and now at OceanStateStories.org, the new non-profit news outlet based at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center in Newport, R.I., that I co-founded and now direct. So I have the long and inside view of American journalism!

G.'s book list on an important moment or time in history

G. Wayne Miller Why did G. love this book?

In Storm Lake, published in 2018, Pulitzer-winning editor, publisher, and author Art Cullen writes with passion, insight and humor about immigration, family, community and the history and future of this part of Iowa – and, to an extent, much of America.

His family’s newspaper, the Storm Lake Times Pilot, serves as a model for local coverage and investigative reporting in an era when hedge funds and out-of-town chains have left many parts of the country without newspapers or with “ghost papers,” shells of their former selves. 

By Art Cullen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Storm Lake as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A reminder that even the smallest newspapers can hold the most powerful among us accountable."—The New York Times Book Review

Watch the documentary Storm Lake on PBS.

Iowa plays an outsize role in national politics. Iowa introduced Barack Obama and voted bigly for Donald Trump. But is it a bellwether for America, a harbinger of its future? Art Cullen’s answer is complicated and honest. In truth, Iowa is losing ground. The Trump trade wars are hammering farmers and manufacturers. Health insurance premiums and drug prices are soaring. That’s what Iowans are dealing with, and the problems they face are the…


Book cover of A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir

Wendell Affield Author Of Muddy Jungle Rivers: A river assault boat cox'n's memory journey of his war in Vietnam

From my list on the Vietnam war that explore waste and loss.

Why am I passionate about this?

As I write this, I massage aching bits of shrapnel still embedded beneath silvered scars. I’ve read many Vietnam War stories—praising the war, glorifying combat, condemning the war. My stories are 1st person limited POV, voice of a twenty-year-old sailor. My title is a spin-off of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. By the time I wrote my memoir, I realized that our national goals in Vietnam had been Muddy from the beginning. I too, traveled Jungle Rivers. During my time on the riverboat, I witnessed Rivers of blood—rivers of life, trickle across our deck. And yes, Jungle is a fitting metaphor for our life at that time.

Wendell's book list on the Vietnam war that explore waste and loss

Wendell Affield Why did Wendell love this book?

This is the first Vietnam War book I read. For almost ten years I remained silent about my military service—many coworkers did not know I had served, let alone two tours and wounded in action. Caputo’s voice and sense of loss and waste and rage touched so close to my feelings. His gift of words made me live again the countless hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror—for me, ambushes, mines, incoming artillery, and mortar rounds. Twenty years in the future, when I began writing my stories, I read Caputo’s book again because I hoped to emulate his sense of angst.

By Philip Caputo,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked A Rumor of War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The 40th anniversary edition of the classic Vietnam memoir―featured in the PBS documentary series The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick―with a new foreword by Kevin Powers

In March of 1965, Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history’s ugliest wars, he returned home―physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone.

A Rumor of War is far more than one soldier’s story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America’s indifference to the fate of…


If you love A Bright Shining Lie...

Ad

Book cover of American Flygirl

American Flygirl By Susan Tate Ankeny,

The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.

This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States…

Book cover of Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills

Ronny Bruce Author Of The Grunts of Wrath: A Memoir Examining Modern War and Mental Health

From my list on infantry life during modern war.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an OG ATLien (born in Atlanta, Georgia) and served in the US Marine Corps and the US Army. I hold a degree from Kennesaw State University and taught high school social studies from 2004 - 2006, before my military reenlistment which jumpstarted the events in my memoir.   

Ronny's book list on infantry life during modern war

Ronny Bruce Why did Ronny love this book?

Charles Henderson wrote a banger of a true story involving the exploits of USMC scout sniper Carlos Hathcock during Vietnam.

Hathcock isn’t your average grunt, though. He’s a highly skilled and award-winning shooter who is arguably the greatest American sniper of all time. Sometimes crawling through thick jungle, mud, and extreme filth, Hathcock stalked his human prey for hours and days - patiently waiting for the perfect kill shot.

If a top Vietnamese general needed to be taken out, Gunny Hathcock got the call. While tracking his objective, Hathcock navigated the harsh jungles and hills of Southeast Asia better than his enemies who lived underground there. This book takes you on a helluva ride.  

By Charles Henderson,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Marine Sniper as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The explosive true story of Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, a legendary Marine sniper in the Vietnam War.

There have been many Marines. There have been many marksmen. But there has only been one Sergeant Carlos Hathcock.

He stalked the Viet Cong behind enemy lines-on their own ground. And each time, he emerged from the jungle having done his duty. His record is one of the finest in military history, with ninety-three confirmed kills.

This is the story of a simple man who endured incredible dangers and hardships for his country and his Corps. These are the missions that have made Carlos…


Book cover of All the President's Men
Book cover of The Quiet American
Book cover of The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms And The CIA

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,592

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in soldiers, the Vietnam War, and Vietnam?

Soldiers 112 books
The Vietnam War 245 books
Vietnam 170 books