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Booklists
Lists of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on the lists. Titles are generally listed alphabetically by author.
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
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Booklists and Suggested Reading
Gulf War I Booklist
Page Modified: August 19, 2008
Books about the first Gulf War. The list includes both fiction and nonfiction.
Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.
Fiction
- The Fist of God
Author: Forsyth, Frederick
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553091263 Date: 1994
PW
The author of such classics as The Day of the Jackal returns with a seamless blending of the real and the imagined, of political assassination and high-tech military might, set behind the scenes of the Gulf War. As coalition forces ready for battle against the Iraqi Army, a Western spy in Baghdad seeks a mysterious traitor named Jericho, who may hold the key to locating Saddam Hussein's secret weapon.
Updated 4.7.03 - Dear Mr. President: Stories
Author: Hudson, Gabe
Publisher: Knopf $ 19 ISBN: 0375413952 Date: 2002
PW
From one of the brilliant newcomers featured in The New Yorker's Fiction Debut Writers of 2001" issue--eight stories and a novella that take on the Gulf War with audacity, inventiveness, humor, and a startling emotional resonance.
Updated 4.7.03 - We Pierce: A Novel
Author: Huebner, Andrew
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743212770 Date: 2003
As he did with American by Blood, Huebner turns his family's long experience with violence and war into breath-taking literary fiction. In We Pierce, Huebner has chosen another subject that's sure to strike a chord with his readers: fighting for what you believe in, no matter the cost.
Updated 4.7.03 - The Sand Cafe
Author: Macfarquhar, Neil
Publisher: Public Affairs $26 ISBN: 1586483684 Date: 2006
LJ
The Cairo bureau chief for the "New York Times" goes inside the private lives and professional mischief of war reporters waiting for the first Gulf War to begin in this bitingly funny first novel.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 2.28.06 - Pearl of Kuwait
Author: Paine, Tom
Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151005184 Date: 2003
California surfer Cody "Cowboy" Carmichael's life is forever changed when he meets Private Tommy Trang at boot camp. A powerful first novel by an award-winning writer, Paine has created an enthralling, joyful, and original story with the classic ingredients of love and war.
Updated 4.7.03 - Monkey in the Middle
Author: Pryor, Josh
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786711736 Date: 2003
Set at the cusp of the future on the seedier sides of Los Angeles, Monkey in the Middle is a suspenseful and hilarious tale of reckless genetic engineering, post-traumatic stress disorder, and tainted love. Down-and-out Gulf War veteran Dutch Flowers returns to L.A. with a bad case of "compassion fatigue"--and acute paranoia. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 4.7.03 - Somewhere in a Desert
Author: Sigaund, Dominique
Publisher: Arcade List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 1559704926 Date: 1999
Library Journal
Desert Storm has ended. A body lies in no-man's land in the desert, across the Iraqi border between the allied front and a small Saudi village. It hasn't decomposed or burned in the sun. Its eves are open, and its mouth is smiling. No wounds show how the man died. No dog tags or insignia identify which side he fought on. The man is John Miller, an American soldier who has gone missing in action. While his wife, Mary, waits at home in the States for news of her husband, John has disappeared and died an absurd death. - Publisher marketing. - The Consignment
Author: Sutherland, Grant
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553801872 Date: 2003
Captain Ned Rourke of the U.S. Rangers always expected that war would be hell. But in the Gulf War he was appalled to find that his own men were being cut down by weapons made by the biggest and best armaments manufacturer in the world--the U.S.A.
Updated 4.7.03
Nonfiction
- Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War
Author: Atkinson, Rick
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24.95 ISBN: 0395602904 Date: 1993
PW
Kirkus
During the war with Iraq, the Pentagon imposed unprecedented restrictions on the media's access to the battlefield. But Rick Atkinson's Crusade, says the Chicago Tribune, "pierces the Pentagon's veil of secrecy and gives us a first-rate book about how the war was fought".
Updated 4.7.03 - The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict
in the Gulf
Author: Gordon, Michael R. & General Bernard Trainor
Publisher: Little Brown $ 27.95 ISBN: 0316321729 Date: 1995
Kirkus
Updated 4.7.03 - Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story
of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda
Author: Hamzah, Khidr Abd Al-Abbas
Publisher: Scribner $ 26 ISBN: 0684873869 Date: 2000
PW
The defector once responsible for Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program reveals for the first time what the CIA and Iraq desperately want to keep hidden -- that Saddam Hussein is devastatingly close to manufacturing nuclear weapons and has every intention of using them.
Updated 4.7.03 - Martyr's Day: A Chronicle of a Small War
Author: Kelly, Michael
Publisher: Random $ 23 ISBN:0679411224 Date: 1993
Kirkus | ALA Notable Book
In this classic account of the Gulf War from all sides of the conflict, Michael Kelly brings Operation Desert Storm to vivid life. He watches bombs fall on Baghdad; waits for Scud attacks in Tel Aviv, hears horrific tales of rape and torture in Kuwait, and travels with Kurdish rebels at war with Saddam Hussein themselves. In the new foreword and afterword, Kelly places the Gulf War in the context of the other wars of the twentieth century and makes a case for its being the opening salvo in the first war of the twenty-first century.
Updated 4.7.03 - A Woman at War: Storming Kuwait With the U.S. Marines
Author: Moore, Molly
Publisher: Scribner $ 22.50 ISBN: 068419418x Date: 1993
PW
Updated 4.7.03 - Hollow Victory: A Contrary View of the Gulf War
Author: Record, Jeffrey
Publisher: Brassey's $ 23 ISBN: 0028810465 Date: 1993
PW
Updated 4.7.03 - The Demonic Comedy: Some Detours in the Baghdad
of Saddam Hussein
Author: Roberts, Paul William
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374138230
Kirkus
PW
At once both chillingly horrifying and hysterically funny, The Demonic Comedy is a unique travel memoir, an eyewitness testament to the horrors of dictatorship and the devastation of war. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 4.7.03 - Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and
Other Battles
Author: Swofford, Anthony
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743235355 Date: 2003
Kirkus
When the Marines--or "jarheads" as they call themselves--are sent to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford is there, with a 100-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. In this powerful memoir, he weaves his war experience with vivid accounts of boot camp, reflections on the mythos of the Marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family.
Updated 4.7.03Links:
Frontline: The Gulf War
Washington Post: Fog of War
Historical Resources Branch US Army Center of Military History Operations
DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM Bibliography
Hotlists
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