Books like Shoot Like a Girl — picked by fans

Recent genetic research on the human remains of a 10th-century Viking grave excavated in 1878 in Birka, Sweden, rocked the world of Viking studies when it determined that the warrior buried with numerous weapons and two horses was not male, but female. I loved how this author imagines what that woman’s life might have been like. She also suggests that the woman buried in the Birka grave was merely one of many female Viking warriors, offering data drawn from archaeological finds, from historical accounts, from language studies, and from the sagas to support the theory that ‘shield maids’ really did exist. I had been dubious about the possibility of female Vikings, but the arguments presented in this book are too compelling. Reading it changed my mind. Now I’m a believer.

In many ways, Antonia Fraser's Warrior Queens spurred my long-term interest in women warriors. Fraser not only introduced me to historical women I had never heard of, but to the idea that women had fought as a normal part of the army in far more epochs and far more civilizations than is normally appreciated. Fraser looks at her warring queens as a group as well as individually, trying to understand the tropes that (mostly male) historians have used both to make them bigger than life and to demean them as women. A fascinating read that has held up well over time.

Until reading this book (and Stone above), I had accepted that the historical version of womanhood we are given was accurate. While I had been a girl who liked to be active, ride horses, and involve myself in big questions, I believed I was a bizarre example of emerging feminism, not the inheritor of a powerful legacy.

Mayor’s book showed me that there have been women for thousands of years who owned and managed themselves. There was a historical example for me to point towards. The Amazons were real women who lived in communities that were uniquely sovereign. It made my being quake in the profundity of what it meant for a woman today to point to a woman 2000 years ago and say, “Me too” in a whole new way.

Lynn was one of my graduate advisors decades ago, but he wrote this long after I finished.

A highly respected military historian, Lynn did a remarkably sympathetic and nuanced job of explaining the vital role women played in early modern warfare. No, he doesn’t concentrate on the few who took on male garb and actually fought, but rather the tens of thousands of mostly nameless “camp followers” who provided essential services: food and fodder, as sutlers, and yes, as prostitutes. Quite simply, an early modern army couldn’t function without its extensive “tail.” 

One of the salient characteristics separating premodern and modern armies is how governments eventually, over a long period of time, froze out women from participating in any aspects of warfare by bringing under their aegis all the services (save prostitution) that women had heretofore provided.

There is a very good reason this book has been adapted into a movie—it tells the very real story of women who circumvent Congressional law to fight alongside Army Rangers, Navy SEALS, and other special operations teams in Afghanistan. Female Engagement Teams (FET) take part in secret missions, under the dark of night, “attached” to special ops and not only proving they can keep up, but they are mission essential. It’s about friendship, loss, the bonds made in war, and a march towards equality, as combat roles weren’t open to women at the time—but these women did it anyway. Great to counter those people want to lavish praise on Rangers, SEALs, or Special Ops because they’re “the best of the best” and “only men.” Surprise! Women do it, too. 

Washington Post correspondent Craig Whitlock’s book on the last phase of the US war in Afghanistan packs a big punch – which seems to have been left unabsorbed by the mainstream media.

Based on a rich archive of official interviews and oral histories, Whitlock presents a detailed case that the Obama administration hid the extent of the failure of the Afghan “surge” because of its fear that any 9/11-linked fiasco would damage the President’s 2012 reelection chances.

As with the other work profiled here, this book helps explain why the Obama administration’s Benghazi narrative appeared both unlikely and confused, and how the Right exploited the American public’s discomfort with it to create its own increasingly aggressive and deranged narrative.

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.

This is a story that deals with old soldiers who never give up. It’s the story of Jake surviving Afghanistan as a serving soldier. I write about soldiers with PTSD, so it’s important I study the area, and it can be tough. Really tough. Heartbreaking to read about the effects of war on the mind of a soldier. I’ve read several, but this one really knocked me for six. It’s an educated, intelligent narrative about a young life full of honour, duty, passion, and hope. Then he goes to war. If we are ever to understand why war is so terrible, then we need to listen to those on the front line. Highly recommended for those brave enough.

As the former Commandant and Superintendent of West Point, I came to love and admire the young cadets who came to West Point to serve their country, knowing full well they would join an Army at war, putting their lives at risk, and yet they still came. 

This book is about a West Point graduate who was not only a West Point graduate, but also a Rhodes Scholar, and after all of his education, found himself in the harsh and most deadly places in Afghanistan, leading a platoon of 40 young men who were in combat fighting for their lives and each other, almost every day.

This is a marvelous story, and it brought me closely into the lives of the junior leaders who are standing in the gap between the evil that threatens our nation and the American people. I can’t help but admire their strength, wisdom, commitment, honor,… show more.

In the interests of full disclosure, I knew Campbell at university so my judgment on this novel of the Afghan war cannot be fully impartial.

I found it powerful though. There are obvious overlays between the experience of Campbell himself and his central protagonist Tom Chamberlain – both serve in high-period Afghanistan as officers with cavalry units. (Campbell was in the Blues and Royals). That overlap grants the novel its authenticity – from its dissection of 'ally,’ British army slang for cool, to “rock star” bomb disposal officers capable of “squaring up to colonels” and coffins of blast victims reduced to a few scraps of ruined flesh subsequently weighed down with sandbags.

Campbell’s next novel, The Fires of Gallipoli, set in the First World War, will be out next year.