Here are 100 books that Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk fans have personally recommended if you like
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
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I am a historian and journalist. I lived in Italy for over twenty years, immersing myself in the culture of that country—in every form. I decided to write Calcio after becoming aware of the centrality of football to Italian culture and politics, and around the time of the rise of a football entrepreneur to political power—Silvio Berlusconi. The book took me three years, led me to visit numerous cities, stadiums, and regions, and interview dozens of journalists, experts, and players. It was a love letterand a warning—dedicated to ‘my father who loves football, and my son, who hates it.'
A superb and gripping account of the hold that American Football has over a small town in the USA. In telling the story of a season, Bissinger captures the glory, tragedy, and futility of sport, and its connection to racial politics, ambition, local rivalries, and a passionate fan base. Led to a brilliant TV series. Elegiac and path-breaking.
The 25th anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller and Sports Illustrated 's best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the authorReturn once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa,the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn't known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true.With frankness and compassion, H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the…
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 that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Like all of us, I was raised on promises, and now I’ve veered off to another perspective. I love football. I played in high school, college, and for a brief time, in the NFL (didn’t make the final roster!) Philosophy has been a life-long pursuit, but I didn’t find what I was looking for: the truth. Except for the existentialists, most of it is a mere history of how mankind thought. But philosophy has taught me how to examine the essence of important issues. That’s why I wrote a book about tribalism, because to me, tribalism is the strongest dynamic in humanity and morality is subordinate to tribalism.
I originally read this as research for my own novel and I’m so glad I did. Not all of it is about scandal, in fact my favorite parts highlighted how sports can be used to bring out the best in us. In fact, that’s what sports did for me. I loved that it also sheds light on the machinations we don’t see that are used to drive the sport. And, yes, I was horrified by some of the stories: horrified by the sexual assaults and furthermore by the rationalizations and the coverups. The feeling I had reading The System: we all want to dress ourselves in virtue, but all we really want is to win and for some, there is no price that’s too high.
NCAA football is big business. Every Saturday millions of people file into massive stadiums or tune in on television as "athlete-students" give everything they've got to make their team a success. Billions of dollars now flow into the game. But what is the true cost? The players have no share in the oceans of money. And once the lights go down, the glitter doesn't shine so brightly. Filled with mind-blowing details of major NCAA football scandals, with stops at Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Missouri, BYU, LSU, Texas A&M and many more,…
Like all of us, I was raised on promises, and now I’ve veered off to another perspective. I love football. I played in high school, college, and for a brief time, in the NFL (didn’t make the final roster!) Philosophy has been a life-long pursuit, but I didn’t find what I was looking for: the truth. Except for the existentialists, most of it is a mere history of how mankind thought. But philosophy has taught me how to examine the essence of important issues. That’s why I wrote a book about tribalism, because to me, tribalism is the strongest dynamic in humanity and morality is subordinate to tribalism.
I’m conflicted, two of my three kids went to Florida State and this book holds nothing back about the crimes and sins that have taken place at FSU. I felt like I was witness to a crime scene; the crimes were academic, cultural, and truly criminal. I completely believe that our higher education system is critical to our country, yet what takes place at these schools is an outrage. This is a book written by a talented journalist who took me on an objective tour of the hypocrisy we are willing to allow for our tribe to dominate.
With little public debate or introspection, our institutions of higher learning have become hostages to the rapacious, smash-mouth entertainment conglomerate known, quaintly, as intercollegiate athletics. In Champions Way, New York Times investigative reporter Mike McIntire chronicles the rise of this growing scandal through the experience of the Florida State Seminoles, one of the most successful teams in NCAA history.
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his Times investigation of college sports, McIntire breaks new ground here, uncovering the workings of a system that enables athletes to violate academic standards and avoid criminal prosecution for actions ranging from shoplifting to…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Like all of us, I was raised on promises, and now I’ve veered off to another perspective. I love football. I played in high school, college, and for a brief time, in the NFL (didn’t make the final roster!) Philosophy has been a life-long pursuit, but I didn’t find what I was looking for: the truth. Except for the existentialists, most of it is a mere history of how mankind thought. But philosophy has taught me how to examine the essence of important issues. That’s why I wrote a book about tribalism, because to me, tribalism is the strongest dynamic in humanity and morality is subordinate to tribalism.
Back to fiction. I loved how everyone, including the adorable young woman from a hardscrabble background, Charlotte, took their own big bite of hypocrisy pie. Everyone, except for one character, did it and I’m not going to spoil it for you (it was the star basketball player.) I think I’ve read everything Tom Wolfe had ever written and this is his finest work. This novel took me on a ride, I was there, the emotions I felt reading it were visceral and real. At the end, the feeling I had was—what the hell is college all about? And then I answered myself: it’s four years of summer camp and I can’t wait until my youngest graduates.
A scandalous exploration of elite undergraduate life from the author of The Bonfire of the Vanities
Dupont University: the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from Sparta, North Carolina, who has come here on a full scholarship. But Charlotte soon learns that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, status, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.
As Charlotte encounters Dupont's elite, she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of…
Who can really claim that they know everything about the human heart, the mind, the soul? The infinite mysteries and complexities of what makes someone who we can call “human.” I'm betting no one. Certainly not me. But what's important is the passion to keep exploring, to keep digging through the mind in an effort to understand myself. That effort, along with what I discover, is one of the most tangible things that not only enriches my living life, but also gives me comfort facing the inevitable end. These books were passionate companions, inspiring me, for however long, to further my efforts in self-discovery.
The book resonates with me on many levels. Firstly, of course, I’m a combat veteran, so the military and living through the hell of war are part of my identity. The author and I share an innate connection there.
But on a different level, it delves into the intangible burdens that resonate for years after the experience – the grief, the guilt, the terror, even the longing to return because it’s what you know.
The title is explicit, and I share the load with all my fellow veterans.
The million-copy bestseller, which is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
'The Things They Carried' is, on its surface, a sequence of award-winning stories about the madness of the Vietnam War; at the same time it has the cumulative power and unity of a novel, with recurring characters and interwoven strands of plot and theme.
But while Vietnam is central to 'The Things They Carried', it is not simply a book about war. It is also a book about the human heart - about the terrible weight of those things we carry through…
I am a retired university professor who taught creative writing at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, and a not-yet-retired author, although I have on several occasions solemnly stated that I have written my last prose book. I believe these two qualities make me competent to create a list of 5 books that I have reread the most often.
I first read this book exactly 50 years ago, back in 1974, when I was 26. Ever since then, I have reread Jaroslav Hašek's masterpiece every single year, always in February. It is the gloomiest month of the year in Europe when our tonus is at its lowest, and we desperately need something to cheer us up.
The hilarious story of the good soldier is precisely that “injection” of optimism, serenity, élan vital that helps me make it through the last winter months till the arrival of the Spring. Although I already know by heart many passages from Svejk, I still laugh aloud while reading them—reading about the instinctive wisdom of an ordinary, small Czech man trying to comically outsmart the demonic forces of History…
The inspiration for such works as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jaroslav Hasek's black satire The Good Soldier Svejk is translated with an introduction by Cecil Parrott in Penguin Classics.
Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk becomes the Austro-Hungarian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards, getting drunk and becoming a general nuisance, the resourceful Svejk uses all his natural cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the doctors, police, clergy and officers…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I love humorous tales with quirky characters who find themselves in bizarre situations, especially in foreign countries. This mirrors my own experience of the world! After Brown University, I found myself teaching rowdy Egyptian girls; I resided in a converted classroom in Istanbul; and I was tamed by an eighty-year-old Spanish nun at a girls’ school in Tokyo. In my late thirties, I dropped my anchor in Lattakia, Syria, only to be tailed by the Syrian secret police. Like the character in my novel, Confessions of a Knight Errant, I returned to Cairo from Almeria, Spain where I was on a writers’ residency on January 28th, the Friday of Rage, of the Egyptian uprising, 2011.
This summer I visited Fort Davis, Texas and learned about the “buffalo” soldiers who were stationed there in the 1860s.
This was the nickname for African-American soldiers, who were separate regiments in the U.S. Army. McBride’s novel deals with a “buffalo” regiment but is set in World War II in Italy. I did not know anything about the experiences of African-American soldiers in World War II.
What I really loved about this book was the unlikely situations that a small group of African-American soldiers find themselves in a tiny village in Italy, under siege from the Germans. Despite the differences in culture and language, the soldiers find refuge and friendship with an Italian peasant, who is raising rabbits under the floorboards of his ramshackle cabin.
One of their pals saves a disturbed Italian orphan and the small group of soldiers, separated from their regiment, get sidetracked by this humanitarian mission…
Now a Spike Lee film, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, Five-Carat Soul, and Kill 'Em and Leave
James McBride’s powerful memoir, The Color of Water, was a groundbreaking literary phenomenon that transcended racial and religious boundaries, garnering unprecedented acclaim and topping bestseller lists for more than two years. Now McBride turns his extraordinary gift for storytelling to fiction—in a universal tale of courage and redemption inspired by a little-known historic event. In Miracle at St. Anna, toward the end of World…
I’m tired of heroes, and I’ve forgotten what the good guys were fighting for, and if a dark lord wants to ravage the land in the name of Cthulu then they can get in line. I’m more interested in deadbeat losers. What is it really like to walk amongst the living but feel dead inside? How hard is it when you’re beaten before you’ve even begun? And in a world of losers, can one of them really change the world and make it a better place?
I am cheating here on two counts. Firstly, I’m not recommending a single book but actually TWENTY NINE books and counting! Secondly, it’s not strictly fantasy; however, when a lowly street orphan ends up featuring in every major battle from 1799 through to 1821 whilst also playing a pivotal role in each one, I reckon even Gandalf, after coming back from the dead and riding saddle-less for days on end would look at Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Sharpe and think “Hmm, bit far-fetched.”
But this is the reason why I love Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books. Richard Sharpe is an outcast in his own army, a victim of bullying and constantly underestimated, only to battle through dirt and smoke to prove all the posh snobs wrong every time. Here’s to the thirtieth!
Bernard Cornwell's action-packed series that captures the gritty texture of Napoleonic warfare--now beautifully repackaged
Captain Richard Sharpe prepares to lead his men against the army of Napoleon at Talavera in what will be the bloodiest battle of the war. After their cowardly loss of the regiment's colors, the men's resentment toward the upstart Sharpe turns to treachery, and Sharpe must fight to redeem the honor of his regiment.
I’m pretty well qualified to provide you with a list of five great books about men at war because, frankly, I’ve spent half my life reading them and the other half trying to write them (you be the judge!). My degree in Military Studies was focused on the question of what makes men endure the lunacy of war (whether they be ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’), and it was in fiction that I found some of the clearest answers–clue: it’s often less about country and duty and more about the love of the men alongside the soldier. In learning how to write, I also learned how to recognize great–enjoy!
I came across this book while researching why the US Army (and Marines) struggled so badly in the Vietnam War. As with all the books I’m recommending here, it spoke to me of how men go to war for their duty but stay at war for their brothers.
It speaks volumes of the frustrations and contradictions of a war in which an American generation skewed to the poor and racially discriminated against was sent to fight a highly motivated army of liberation and paid the price for their obedience. And told me more about what really happened in the valleys of that benighted country than any history book could.
I read it cover to cover and then read it again, eagerly consuming its truth at a time when the scars were so fresh that the truth was barely starting to emerge, and I commend it to you both as a…
Hailed as the most important novel to emerge from the Vietnam War when first published in 1978, this book launched a spectacular writing career for James Webb that now includes four bestselling novels. A much-decorated former Marine who fought and was wounded in Vietnam, Webb tells the story of a platoon of tough, young Marines enduring the tropical hell of Southeast Asian jungles while facing an invisible enemy--in a war no one understands. Filled with the sounds and smells of combat, it is nevertheless a book about people, an amazing variety of closely observed characters caught up in circumstances beyond…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I love learning about history, and the more I learn, the more I appreciate my place in this world. While military history, particularly from pre-WW1 to the end of WW2, was what made me first plant my nose in a book, I can geek out on pretty much any historical period: the rise of human civilization, Rome, the conquest of the New World, the development of airplanes. But it’s the personal element that most draws me in, and the fact that we humans remain fundamentally the same in how we cope with another through the ages. It’s through fiction that we see the past in a way that makes sense.
What I loved most about this book was the voice. Woodrell did a fantastic job presenting the period Biblical lyricism through the narrator, Jake Roedel, a reluctant Confederate soldier.
The scene is the largely overlooked Kansas-Missouri front of the US Civil War, where bloody vendettas were just as much of the fighting as were skirmishes between the blue and the gray. We ride with the young men, boys really, as they raid and pillage, hide and survive, and there’s nothing romantic about the loss and pointless savagery.
Set in the border states of Kansas and Missouri, Woe to Live On explores the nature of lawlessness and violence, friendship and loyalty, through the eyes of young recruit Jake Roedel. Where he and his fellow First Kansas Irregulars go, no one is safe, no one can be neutral. Roedel grows up fast, experiencing a brutal parody of war without standards or mercy. But as friends fall and families flee, he questions his loyalties and becomes an outsider even to those who have become outlaws.
