100 books like Odysseus in America

By Jonathan Shay,

Here are 100 books that Odysseus in America fans have personally recommended if you like Odysseus in America. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Sune Engel Rasmussen Author Of Twenty Years: Hope, War, and the Betrayal of an Afghan Generation

From my list on nonfiction stories that can rival any novel.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always believed in the power of journalism to tell stories of people: the powerful as well as the ordinary and disenfranchised. In the hands of the right writer, such stories can have as much dramatic sweep and be as engrossing as any work of fiction. I have read literary nonfiction since before I became a journalist, and as a foreign correspondent, while breaking news is a key part of my job, longform narrative writing is where I really find gratification, as a writer and a reader. It’s a vast genre, so I focused this list mostly on stellar examples of foreign reporting. I hope you enjoy it. 

Sune's book list on nonfiction stories that can rival any novel

Sune Engel Rasmussen Why did Sune love this book?

This is a master class in investigative journalism and in nonfiction storytelling. Radden Keefe is one of my journalistic role models, and this book about the troubles in Northern Ireland is gripping from page one as it investigates the 1972 murder and abduction of Jean McConville in a way that probably only a foreigner could do, given the sensitivity of the topic. It is a vital historical document, a gripping thriller, and an empathetic social observation all in one.  

By Patrick Radden Keefe,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Say Nothing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions

"Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review

Jean McConville's…


Book cover of The Slowworm's Song

E.M. Liddick Author Of All the Memories That Remain: War, Alzheimer's, and the Search for a Way Home

From my list on moral injury and the dark night of the soul.

Why am I passionate about this?

Moral injury, post-traumatic stress, and the dark night of the soul are human conditions I understand well. See, over the course of a lengthy military career, I deployed overseas many times, including to Afghanistan. In my last two deployments, I served as the legal advisor to a joint special operations task force. In this role, I advised on more than 500 “strikes”: air attacks intended to kill humans. When I returned from Afghanistan in 2018, I noticed a change in me, and I’ve been living with moral injury and post-traumatic stress since. This list helped me, particularly with the lesser-known “moral injury,” and I sincerely hope it helps you too.

E.M.'s book list on moral injury and the dark night of the soul

E.M. Liddick Why did E.M. love this book?

A beautiful story written beautifully. I was enamored with Miller’s deft use of lyrical prose set within an epistolary framework to tell the story of one man’s struggle against the demons of his past, and the consequences that followed, all in search of redemption.

Though fictional, Miller manages to avoid the usual veteran tropes in creating his character. It’s an intimate account—and one with which I’m intimately familiar—that feels truer than nonfiction. I’ve found few more realistic accounts of living with the moral injury that comes from our errors in judgment, how those errors cause unintended, though no less harmful, secondary effects on those we love, and how life remains yet salvageable.

I found it to be, at once, an inspiring, endearing, and threatening read.

By Andrew Miller,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Slowworm's Song as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By the Costa Award-winning author of Pure, a profound and tender tale of guilt, a search for atonement and the hard, uncertain work of loving.

'The writing is near perfect. But the novel's excellence goes far beyond this . . . You read [it] . . . with your pulse racing, all your senses awake' Guardian

'A beautiful, lambent, timely novel' Sarah Hall

An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during…


Book cover of What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars

E.M. Liddick Author Of All the Memories That Remain: War, Alzheimer's, and the Search for a Way Home

From my list on moral injury and the dark night of the soul.

Why am I passionate about this?

Moral injury, post-traumatic stress, and the dark night of the soul are human conditions I understand well. See, over the course of a lengthy military career, I deployed overseas many times, including to Afghanistan. In my last two deployments, I served as the legal advisor to a joint special operations task force. In this role, I advised on more than 500 “strikes”: air attacks intended to kill humans. When I returned from Afghanistan in 2018, I noticed a change in me, and I’ve been living with moral injury and post-traumatic stress since. This list helped me, particularly with the lesser-known “moral injury,” and I sincerely hope it helps you too.

E.M.'s book list on moral injury and the dark night of the soul

E.M. Liddick Why did E.M. love this book?

Oftentimes, we focus on the injured individual, forgetting that the injuries extend to—and harm—others in our immediate orbit: spouses, children, family, and friends. I appreciated, therefore, that Wood, in detailing moral injuries to our servicemembers, simultaneously exposes the reader to the soul wound-adjacent injuries to our loved ones, reminding us of the aphorism, “hurt people hurt people.” 

My list contains a theme, of course: that the responsibility for helping those living with moral injury and post-traumatic stress heal lies beyond the individual, requires the community. So I welcomed Wood’s willingness to cite the “prefab patriotism,” to borrow Barbara Ehrenreich’s words, of American civilians and their “thank you for your service” platitudes as also worthy of blame. Healing, as Wood rightfully suggests, requires listening without judgment.

By David Wood,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Have We Done as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Most Americans are now familiar with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking new book, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict. Featuring portraits of combat veterans and leading mental health researchers, along with Wood's personal observations of war and the young Americans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, WHAT HAVE WE DONE offers an unflinching look at war and those…


Book cover of God is Not Here: A Soldier's Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of War

E.M. Liddick Author Of All the Memories That Remain: War, Alzheimer's, and the Search for a Way Home

From my list on moral injury and the dark night of the soul.

Why am I passionate about this?

Moral injury, post-traumatic stress, and the dark night of the soul are human conditions I understand well. See, over the course of a lengthy military career, I deployed overseas many times, including to Afghanistan. In my last two deployments, I served as the legal advisor to a joint special operations task force. In this role, I advised on more than 500 “strikes”: air attacks intended to kill humans. When I returned from Afghanistan in 2018, I noticed a change in me, and I’ve been living with moral injury and post-traumatic stress since. This list helped me, particularly with the lesser-known “moral injury,” and I sincerely hope it helps you too.

E.M.'s book list on moral injury and the dark night of the soul

E.M. Liddick Why did E.M. love this book?

A provocative title combines with an introspective account of one soldier’s slow descent into madness to provide an edgy read. I enjoyed Edmonds’ choice of a unique narrative device, jumping backward and forward in his story, to introduce the impossible questions with equally hard answers he faced advising an Iraqi official involved in interrogation—and Edmonds’ ensuing breakdown.

The lion’s share of war literature concerning moral injury and post-traumatic stress comes from “trigger pullers.” But in God is Not Here, we see how war spares no one. And, in exposing war’s reach and how trauma can affect anyone, I believe Edmonds validates—rightfully so—those who might otherwise feel their trauma doesn’t “measure up” to those who experienced “real” trauma.

By Bill Russell Edmonds,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked God is Not Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In May of 2005, the U.S. government finally acknowledged that the invasion of Iraq had spawned an insurgency. With that admission, training the Iraqi Forces suddenly became a strategic priority. Lt. Col. Bill Edmonds, then a Special Forces captain, was in the first group of "official" military advisors. He arrived in Mosul in the wake of Abu Ghraib, at the height of the insurgency, and in the midst of America's rapidly failing war strategy.

Edmonds' job was to advise an Iraqi intelligence officer-to assist and temper his interrogations-but not give orders. But he wanted to be more than a wallflower,…


Book cover of In the Language of My Captor

Tina Cane Author Of Are You Nobody Too?

From my list on not all poets are dead.

Why am I passionate about this?

I learned how to write poetry by reading. Books have always been my main teachers. I try to read all kinds of work because there are so many different kinds of minds to learn from. When I discovered poetry as a teenager, it fascinated me on the level of the line. I spent a lot of time just looking at poems, without necessarily even reading themlet alone understanding them—because the form on the page was a revelation. It amazed me that people were allowed to do that! That I could choose to do that with wordsto explode a sentence across the white space or smash all the words together. 

Tina's book list on not all poets are dead

Tina Cane Why did Tina love this book?

I love this book, because it fuses personal history with American history in the most searing, heartbreaking, and incisive ways.

I taught this book to high school students, alongside the work of James Baldwin, since they both call to account America's founding, its brutality, the moral injury and legacy of slavery, and also the corrosive nature of popular culture. My students were stunned. It woke them up and demanded that they pay attention.

By Shane McCrae,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Language of My Captor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry (2017)

Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae's latest collection is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. Historical persona poems and a prose memoir at the center of the book address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. In the book's three sequences, McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, he confronts the myth that freedom can be based upon the power to dominate others, and, in poems about the mixed-race child adopted by Jefferson Davis in the last year of the Civil War, he interrogates the infrequently…


Book cover of The Odyssey

Athena Author Of Murder of Crows: Book One of the Pillars of Dawn

From my list on when destiny calls, and love answers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have a passion for the topic because it’s so unlimited. We’re all called to destiny inner/outer in so many ways. We see a lot of stories about those calls being massive adventures with global impact—but sometimes the small stories, those inner calls with inner love answers are just as epic, just as magnificent. Love of family, community, country, lovers, nature… truly, it can be anything. These are just a few books off the older shelves to illustrate the many ways love answers the call. My challenge is to go back and re-read them with this list in mind. Re-visit books from a decade ago, reframe the story with love.

Athena's book list on when destiny calls, and love answers

Athena Why did Athena love this book?

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…

By Homer, T. E. Lawrence (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Odyssey as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Homer's great epic, The Odyssey, is perhaps Western literature's first adventure story, and certainly remains one of its finest. It describes King Odysseus of Ithaca's epic, ten-year quest to return home after the Trojan War. He encounters giants, sorceresses, sea-monsters and sirens, while his wife Penelope is forced to resist the suitors who besiege her on Ithaca. Both an enchanting fairy tale and a gripping drama, The Odyssey is immensely influential, not least for its rich complexity and the magnetism of its hero.

This Macmillan Collector's Library edition uses a translation by T. E. Lawrence, now remembered as 'Lawrence of…


Book cover of The Odyssey

Brian L. Braden Author Of Black Sea Gods

From my list on epic adventures at the beginning of time.

Why am I passionate about this?

Years ago, a young helicopter pilot struggled through thick fog to fly to his base in Southern Turkey. Through the mist, he briefly glimpsed a strange, Stonehenge-like ruin beneath his helicopter. The pilot would one day learn it was the excavation of Göbekli Tepe, a megalithic complex over 12,000 years old. These ruins were already ancient before the Great Pyramids were even built. I was that helicopter pilot, and this event inspired me to imagine the world that birthed Göbekli Tepe. That experience, and my five book recommendations, propelled me to write Black Sea Gods, the first novel in the epic fantasy series The Chronicles of Fu Xi.

Brian's book list on epic adventures at the beginning of time

Brian L. Braden Why did Brian love this book?

All adventures begin with The Odyssey.

Before there was Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, or Bilbo Baggins, there was brave Odysseus. It was Homer who first taught us what it means to desperately desire “to make it there and back again.” For me, The Odyssey struck a personal cord. As a warrior who once answered his nation’s call, it often wasn’t the battles in far distant lands, but the journey home, that was most difficult. Home, that beautiful, powerful word, holds great magic for Odysseus, and for me, too. Many ideas can send a hero on an adventure, but only love of home can bring him back again. These are the greatest adventures of all, and why The Odyssey is foundational for my own novel.

By Homer, Martin Hammond (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'Muse, tell me of a man: a man of much resource, who was made to wander far and long, after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy. Many were the men whose lands he saw and came to know their thinking: many too the miseries at sea which he suffered in his heart, as he sought to win his own life and the safe return of his companions.' Recounting the epic journey home of Odysseus from the Trojan War, The Odyssey - alongside its sister poem The Iliad - stands as the well-spring of Western Civilisation and culture, an…


Book cover of The Iliad & The Odyssey

Shweta Mahendra Author Of Many Visions, Many Worlds: Musings on the past and future of human civilization

From my list on connecting past, present and future civilization.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a dreamer since my childhood and chasing my dream is the goal of my life. Dreams do not have a visible purpose the destiny is hidden behind dreams. While following my dreams, I had started searching for my origin, because I felt connected to some unknown place. I travelled to various ancient sites of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus civilizations and explored that these civilizations were very disciplined and advanced. Still, we are not able to unfold so many mysteries. I see the future in the past and present is just a stem in between, this inspired me to write a book.

Shweta's book list on connecting past, present and future civilization

Shweta Mahendra Why did Shweta love this book?

This epic by Homer has a great impact on epic culture.

Writing such an epic in the 700-800 BC era is mind-blowing, War of Troy which we used to read in comic books and movies has so well narrated citing the bravery of Greek and Trojan Heroes in the Iliad.

Everyone should read about the heroes of Iliad epic King Agamemnon, warrior Achilles and Odyssey’s Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca and his return journey about the Trojan War. Greek mythology is always a great source of information about the ancient time wars and treaties.

Book cover of The Odyssey

Philippa M. Steele Author Of Exploring Writing Systems and Practices in the Bronze Age Aegean

From my list on highlighting the fragility of human culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor at Cambridge University, and following years of training in ancient languages and linguistics, I am currently running a research project on the visual aspects of writing systems. Recently, I’ve become passionate about using research on ancient languages and writing to try to help communities today who are in danger of losing their linguistic traditions (I've started an Endangered Writing Network)–which is why the fragility of human culture is high on my agenda. Ultimately, I’d like the world to be a better place for my baby son to grow up in, and I hope to use my academic work to help people in some small way.

Philippa's book list on highlighting the fragility of human culture

Philippa M. Steele Why did Philippa love this book?

This story has always struck me as a quest to identify and regain humanity, as its hero repeatedly faces strange and powerful obstacles to his voyage home. I first read it as a child and then again, but in Greek, as a student—a time in life when anyone is trying to find their feet as a human being!

Perhaps the most comforting thing is that amongst all the gods and monsters and cursing and fighting, eating habits often characterize the work’s characters. Odysseus is always looking for sitophagoi, bread eaters, i.e. civilized people who make their own food, rather than man-eating monsters. I can identify with a hero looking for nice people to share a nice meal with.

By Homer, Emily Wilson (translator),

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked The Odyssey as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home in a strange world.

This vivid new translation-the first by a woman-matches the number of lines in the Greek original, striding at Homer's sprightly pace. Emily Wilson employs elemental, resonant language and an iambic pentameter to produce a translation with an enchanting "rhythm and rumble" that avoids proclaiming its own grandeur. An engrossing tale told in a compelling new…


Book cover of The Odyssey of Homer

John Marincola Author Of The Histories

From my list on for appreciating Herodotus.

Why am I passionate about this?

For as long as I can remember, I have been deeply interested in how people understand and use the past. Whether it is a patient reciting a personal account of his or her past to a therapist or a scholar writing a history in many volumes, I find that I am consistently fascinated by the importance and different meanings we assign to what has gone before us. What I love about Herodotus is that he reveals something new in each reading. He has a profound humanity that he brings to the genre that he pretty much invented. And to top it all off, he is a great storyteller! 

John's book list on for appreciating Herodotus

John Marincola Why did John love this book?

For fantasy, adventure, and humanity, I find no book like Homer’s Odyssey. Some prefer the Iliad, but for me, the Odyssey has greater depth, resonance, and experience of life. Most of us know about Odysseus’ wonderful adventures, but the whole second half of the epic is about his attempts to get home and, once home, to reintegrate himself into his family and society, from which he has been absent for twenty years.

I love the way the epic relates stories but also makes you think about what stories mean, why people tell them, and how to tell false ones from true. There are many fine translations of the Odyssey, including Emily Wilson’s recent one; my favorite, however, though a bit dated, remains that of Lattimore.

By Homer, Richmond Lattimore (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Odyssey of Homer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is Homer's epic chronicle of the Greek hero Odysseus' triumph over Troy and arduous journey home: Odysseus survives a storm and shipwreck, the cave of the Cyclops and the isle of Circe, the lure of the Sirens' song and a trip to the Underworld, only to find his most difficult challenge at home, where treacherous suitors seek to steal his kingdom and his loyal wife, Penelope.


Book cover of Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Book cover of The Slowworm's Song
Book cover of What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars

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Interested in Odysseus, Vietnam, and Homer?

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