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Geoff Dyer’s new book, Homework, is a memoir about his postwar U.K. childhood. The award-winning author of But Beautiful, Out of Sheer Rage, and The Missing of the Somme is celebrated for his wide-ranging work, and below names six favorite books about war.<\/p>\n
‘The Face of War’ by Martha Gellhorn (1959)<\/p>\n
A record of multiple conflicts\u2014from the Spanish Civil War<\/a> to Vietnam<\/a> and beyond\u2014with characteristic unflinching attention and sympathy. As Gellhorn put it: “I gave up trying to think or judge, and turned myself into a walking tape recorder with eyes.” Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Subscribe to The Week<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n ‘Brave Men’ by Ernie Pyle (1944)<\/p>\n It’s hard to appreciate now just how widely read and loved Pyle was as America’s voice from the front lines of Europe<\/a>. He shared the dangers of the soldiers he was writing about. He also shared their exhaustion but forced himself to go on to cover the Pacific War, where he was killed by a Japanese sniper. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘The Soccer War’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1978)<\/p>\n Kapuscinski was a\u2014the\u2014Polish foreign correspondent, famous for having witnessed almost 30 revolutions and coups in the postwar period of decolonization. Wildly original and inventive\u2014to a fault, since it has turned out that, despite his stated compulsion to experience everything for himself, he didn’t always witness the events he claimed to be reporting on. He remains a giant of global literature and a far worthier recipient of the Nobel Prize than some who received it. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘Dispatches’ by Michael Herr (1977)<\/p>\n An intoxicating mix of new journalism, stoned combat reportage, and memoir<\/a> that achieved the perfect form and style to convey the dreadful futility unleashed by America<\/a> on Vietnam. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘The Forever War’ by Dexter Filkins (2008)<\/p>\n A profoundly moving narrative of fragments and stories detailing the long aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan<\/a> and Iraq<\/a>. The central piece, “Pearland Habibi,” clinches the case: This is reportage on par with fiction of the highest quality. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘V13: Chronicle of a Trial’ by Emmanuel Carr\u00e8re (2024)<\/p>\n The greatness of Carr\u00e8re’s reporting on the trial of the 20 men accused of the 2015 attacks on the Bataclan concert hall and other sites in Paris<\/a> lies in the willingness of a not always modest author to subordinate himself utterly to the task at hand. Beyond doubt, a superb, deeply moving tribute to\u2014and act of\u2014citizenship. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-14521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}