100 books like Redeployment

The author held me spellbound as she skilfully unpacked the remarkable story of Louis Zamperini, who survived a plane crash at sea only to be taken prisoner by the Japanese.

Zamperini’s life leapt from the page and swept me along a chilling pathway that bore witness to his physical and inner strength. Hillenbrand held me riveted to the last page of this remarkable true story.

I’ve pressed copies of Pat Barker’s trilogy into the hands of more friends than I can count!

Set during the First World War, the books didn’t transport me to the battlefields of France as I’d expected, but onto a hospital ward for shell shock victims and into the fictionalized life of an amazing therapist who dedicated himself to their humane treatment.

I’d done a lot of research on the subject for a documentary film and knew about the extreme, sometimes horrific treatment these men received. So I was blown away to learn that there was at least one doctor who treated them compassionately, encouraging them to heal their psychic wounds by speaking about what they’d witnessed.

Everything about these novels – the crushing psychological impact of war on the minds of men and the healing power of remembering – inspired me to explore similar themes in my own fiction.

I came to Hemingway later in life than most. I was lucky enough not to have to read him in school, and for that reason, perhaps, I was able to approach his work without the baggage of tests, essays, and grades. If Travels with Charley is a look at a national road trip, this is an international one between France and Spain. Ostensibly, it’s about some friends traveling from Paris to Pamplona, but of course, there’s a lot more to it.

Sometimes, the right book finds you at the right time, and this book was that for me. I first read it while traveling myself, sometimes with friends, though never with this book’s drama (thankfully). There are aspects of this book that don’t hold up well to modern eyes, but it’s quite an incredible read. 

I remember reading this in my student bedsit and being transfixed. I was studying art but had just decided that I wanted to be a novelist. As such, I loved the opening lines: “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

It is a simple yet beautiful book about love, belief, and betrayal. I’m not religious, but the testing of someone’s faith and how it may make them act stuck with me. Also, the facade of the ‘stiff upper lip,’ but underneath, the vulnerability.

I chose this series, not because of the fun crimes Scotland Yard Inspector Rutledge solves, but because he is a soldier from WWI who battles PTSD. He experiences some of the symptoms other soldiers had, or have, following a traumatic war experience. His dead corporal constantly pesters him throughout the series by being a voice in his head. Additionally, after his fiancée leaves him following the war, he has intimacy issues and cannot express his feelings for the woman he loves. To cope with his sleeplessness and PTSD, he immerses himself in the cases he’s assigned. This series, in part, inspired my book. 

As a military spouse who has lived abroad and is always a bit wary about my surroundings, so much about this uncomfortable novel resonated with me. Two American women become unlikely friends while waiting for an inevitable military coup in an unnamed Central American country. The older woman narrator, Grace, who has married into the ruling family, takes naïve Charlotte under her wing. Both women seem to connect over their background, dislocation, and fractured family life, but nothing is as it seems. The unreliable narrator, the political ugliness, and the encroaching war all make this a thrilling read. The reader never knows what poses the biggest threat to the female protagonists: ex-husbands, runaway children, or firing squads. 

Shara Lessley and I met in Amman, Jordan, during the Arab Spring—both of us American writers whose husbands worked at the embassy. Poetry is not a staple of my reading diet, but Lessley’s poems are small, crystalline stories that perfectly encapsulate what it is like to be an American woman living in the Middle East during a time of potential instability. This volume is slim, but the Jordan that emerges is vast and unforgettable.

I know I’m going old school here with this memoir by the widow of General George Armstrong Custer. The Little Bighorn tragedy looms large throughout, but it happens completely off the page. Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer makes a conscious effort to show her husband in life rather than death, and in this way she illuminates the equally dramatic life experiences of so many military families on the American frontier.

I couldn’t believe how many similarities there are between being a military spouse in the 1870s and being one today. There is the unique drama of living in a sort of satellite USA, either on a military base or in the American Embassy community abroad. Army spouses form fast friendships and are forced to rely on each other when there are so few cultural touchstones or friends and family nearby. These relationships become even more vital when their spouses are unreachable for… show more.

I like this book because it's a case study of what can go wrong. If one doesn't know who they are. The consequences can have harmful effects. Not only for the person but for others as well. That is the definition of pathology - having a harmful impact.

The authors do a masterful job of explaining Bergdahl's personality. He was diagnosed as having a schizotypal personality disorder and never sought treatment. Using Daniel Nettle's Big Five personality indicators descriptors, Bergdahl can be described as a Worried, out-of-control, Wanderer.

I wanted to understand why individuals in our society would volunteer to put themselves in harm’s way by joining—and sometimes reenlisting—to serve on the front lines in a far-flung region of little strategic value to our country (Afghanistan).

In this book, a couple of common themes popped up: camaraderie and heightened states of awareness. The bonds these young men cement when depending upon each other for life and limb take on meaning greater than life itself.

And the strange sense of control—and lack of fear—that can occur on the battlefield when adrenaline kicks in and everything slows down in the mind’s eye has parallels to situations that us outdoor adventure enthusiasts also crave—the “flow experience”—but at a level of intensity I can only imagine.