100 books like King Rat

 This novel was first published in Germany in 1954, based on the author’s actual experience as a U-boat man during the Second World War. Told through the eyes of the fictional Teichmann, it is a visceral tour-de-force of German naval life beginning on minesweepers and gravitating toward U-boats. A brilliant portrayal of a grim reality.

I read this book during my teenage years and it was one of the first times I can remember reading a book that is grittily realistic; devoid of the 'boy's own' adventure style of many Second World War novels, but nor did it preach an obvious repentance by the German protagonist that also became quite common. In that sense, it’s virtually a dramatized documentary story of the author’s war.

This riveting novel brings us into the lives of Russian snipers during the WW II siege of Stalingrad.

We live in a basement, learn something of extreme patience, and get a sense of how people barely remain sane in pressure-cooker situations. What struck me most were the women. One was a sniper with extreme convictions. Others were there for the pleasure of the men. But the best part of the novel was the cat-and-mouse game between opposing snipers. 

Not only did I learn something about warfare, but I couldn’t put the book down.

It’s hard to believe that this realistic portrayal of life in the U.S. Navy during World War II was written by the same author who wrote the vainglorious Winds of War! Still, I have to include The Caine Mutiny on this list because it realistically depicts the everyday tedium endured by crews aboard fourth-class navy ships during the long, drawn-out Pacific war. Wouk served on such a ship, and that inspired this story about mediocrity, cowardice, and mendacity. Like the other books on this list, The Caine Mutiny is ultimately a character study. It focuses on the officers of an obsolete mine-sweeper, plying the backwaters of the war under the directions of an incompetent captain.

A series of incidents puts severe pressure on the ship’s crew and their response creates a dramatic but believable climax to the story. This novel has stuck with me because I served in the… show more.

You cannot make a list of realistic World War II novels without including The Thin Red Line. While it’s not popular to admit that Americans commit atrocities in war, James Jones goes there. Imagine that you are a Japanese soldier who has just been eviscerated by flying shrapnel. You see flies buzzing around your entrails now looped obscenely in the dirt but are too weak to shoo them away. A shadow falls across your face, and you look up to see a U.S. Marine holding a combat knife.  He uses it to pry open your mouth, then clinches pliers around one of your teeth and yanks. Mercifully darkness closes in, and you see no more.

Yes, American’s collected gold teeth from dead and dying Japanese. Why? Well, seeing what the Japanese did to captured Americans – they left the mutilated bodies to be found by advancing GIs – created a… show more.

As a teenager Alexander, to become The Great, is given to one of his father’s warriors – Telamon – to go on a life-threatening winter wolf hunt. A risk of building character and spirit his father is willing to take.  Later in life, during Alexander’s conquest, Telemon never wishes to rise above a colonel’s rank. He wants to remain in the midst of the fighting.  

When Alexander finally departs India to end his conquests Telamon leaves him to go off with a group of monks. When Alexander asks why that choice Telamon responds, “I schooled you as a boy Alexander, to be superior to fear and anger. You vanquished hardship and hunger and cold and fatigue. But you have not learned to master your victories. These hold you. You are their slave.” What more can a man learn from a book?

As for my liking this book, Pressfield is one of my favorite authors and this… show more.

James Jones's brilliant debut novel must have had a great effect on me because I admit, in many ways, my book covers the same ground – how does a man maintain honor and dignity when constrained to live his life by the choices of other, and much more powerful men? I suppose the difference between our two themes is that the question in my book is about those same choices but wrapped in the question of race. Jones’s characters, while in the military, were dealing with personal issues. My Corporal Buck is dealing with an issue about which all of America is on fire.

From Here to Eternity is 70 years old. I read it in 1969, an eternity ago and it has lasted with me from there to here.  When I was in the Marine Corps I knew everything that was happening to me. But I didn’t know what… show more.

This is an obvious pick, I know. Still, it’s on record as the greatest adventure, the highest bar of duty and courage—and ultimately love.

Homer’s epic detailing Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan War is fraught with peril and obstacles that would have made a lesser human give up and call it a day. 

Destiny called him away, but it was love that brought him home from war. At each crossroad Odysseus was offered an alternative, he chose to return to his wife, his son, and his land. He could have been made immortal.

He was offered riches and greater glory, and all the dude wanted was to kiss his wife and sleep in his own bed at the end of the day. Is that so much to ask?

The reason The Odyssey is on my list is to reflect the scale of destiny, and the answering and equal call… show more.

Valdez is a humble and quiet Hispanic living in a Texas border town in the 1870s. When a hand riding with the most powerful rancher in the valley inadvertently kills a man, Valdez assumes responsibility of asking the rancher to pay a remittance to the widow. For his trouble he’s beaten almost to death. When he recovers Valdez becomes again the man he was in his youth, a US Army scout and sets out to destroy the rancher.  He kills one of the ranches thugs with a shot at 1,000 yards.  

Valdez is finally captured by the rancher’s hands. The foreman looks at Valdez’s rifle and, knowing what he’s seeing, asks, “Buffalo hunter?” Valdez responds, “No, Apache.” The foreman asks, “When?” Valdez’s response marks him as a man who has learned and earned wisdom. “Before I knew better.”

If you wonder why this book has stayed with me for so many years, read… show more.

This is the autobiography of the man I consider the most determined escaper of WW2. Jimmy James was a serial escaper. One of the 76 men who broke out of Stalag Luft 3 in The Great Escape, he was recaptured and was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.  Using a spoon, he dug a tunnel and escaped from there!  This is one of the bravest stories I've ever read of determination to succeed at any cost.

This is a story about brutality, justice, and mercy, set amongst the aftermath of Lomax’s experiences as a POW in WWII. With a steady gaze he faces the depths of human barbarity and reckons with his own emotional responses.

Lomax confronts his previous captor wanting retribution, but instead makes an astonishing decision that changes the course of hatred for both him and his perpetrator. I also grappled with the shadows of dark acts committed against my family - even all these years later.