31 American war novels

Across the River and Into the Trees is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1950, after first being serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine earlier that year. The title is derived from the last words of U.S. Civil War Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”

Adventures of a Young Man is a 1939 novel by John Dos Passos, which eventually became the first in this writer's District of Columbia Trilogy.

The Alleys of Eden is the first published novel of Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Olen Butler, first published in 1981.

Arc Light is the debut novel by Eric L. Harry, a techno-thriller about limited nuclear war published in September 1994 and written in 1991 and 1992.

Armageddon, or Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, is a 1963 novel by Leon Uris about post-World War II Berlin and Germany. The novel starts in London during World War II, and goes through to the Four Power occupation of Berlin and the Soviet blockade by land of the city's western boroughs. The description of the Berlin Airlift is quite vivid as is the inter-action between people of the five nations involved as the three major Western Allies rub along with the Soviet occupiers of East Berlin and East Germany. The book finishes with the end of the airlift but sets the scene for the following 40 years of Cold War.

The Barracks Thief is a novella by American writer Tobias Wolff, first published in 1984. The story concerns paratroopers in training during the time of the Vietnam war.

Battle Cry is a 1953 novel by American writer Leon Uris. Many of the events in the book are based on Uris's own World War II experience with the 6th Marine Regiment. The story is largely told in first person from the viewpoint of the Battalion Communications Chief, "Mac," although it frequently shifts to third person in scenes where Mac is not personally present.

A Bell for Adano is a 1944 novel by John Hersey, the winner of the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It tells the story of an Italian-American officer in Sicily during World War II who wins the respect and admiration of the people of the town of Adano by helping them find a replacement for the town bell that the Fascists had melted down for rifle barrels.

The Big War is the second novel of Anton Myrer, published by Appleton-Century-Crofts in 1957. While Myrer is best known for his 1968 novel Once an Eagle, this was his first commercial and critical success.

Catch-22 is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so the timeline develops along with the plot.

Cauldron is a technothriller novel by Larry Bond. The book explores a fictional modern world war scenario, set in the 1990s and involving the dissolution of NATO.

Eleven Days is the first novel written by Lea Carpenter. It was published in 2013.

The Far Reaches is a 2007 novel by American author Homer Hickam and the third novel in the Josh Thurlow series. The book was published on June 12, 2007 through Thomas Dunne Books and takes place during World War II, following the adventures of Coast Guard captain Josh Thurlow. Of the book, Hickam stated that he drew from his experiences in Vietnam while writing the book's South Pacific combat scenes.

A Farewell to Arms is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant ("tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by the 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.

Mockingjay is a 2010 science fiction novel by American author Suzanne Collins. It is chronologically the last installment of The Hunger Games series, following 2008's The Hunger Games and 2009's Catching Fire. The book continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, who agrees to unify the districts of Panem in a rebellion against the tyrannical Capitol.

The Moon Is Down is a novel by American writer John Steinbeck. Fashioned for adaptation for the theatre and for which Steinbeck received the Norwegian King Haakon VII Freedom Cross, it was published by Viking Press in March 1942. The story tells of the military occupation of a small town in Northern Europe by the army of an unnamed nation at war with England and Russia. A French language translation of the book was published illegally in Nazi-occupied France by Les Éditions de Minuit, a French Resistance publishing house. Furthermore, numerous other editions were also secretly published across all of occupied Europe, including Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, and Italian versions ; it was the best known work of U.S. literature in the Soviet Union during the war. Although the text never names the occupying force as German, references to "The Leader", "Memories of defeats in Belgium and France 20 years ago" clearly suggest it. Written with the purpose of motivating resistance movements in occupied countries, the book has appeared in at least 92 editions across the world.

The Paladin is a 1979 historical novel by Brian Garfield. Supposedly based on a true story, it is about a young boy "Christopher Creighton" who befriends Winston Churchill in the mid 1930s and then goes on to take an active role in a number of World War II operations including: informing Churchill in advance of the surrender of Belgium leading to the Dunkirk evacuation, stopping the Americans from being warned of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by sinking a submarine, and misleading the Germans about the Normandy invasion.

Red Army is a 1989 Cold War-era war novel written by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Ralph Peters. The alternate history explores a World War III scenario based on a Soviet attack on West Germany across the North German Plain, with defense provided by NATO army corps from the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.

Red Storm Rising is a war novel, written by Tom Clancy and co-written with Larry Bond, and released on August 7, 1986. Set in the mid-1980s, it features a Third World War between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact forces, and is unique for depicting the conflict as being fought exclusively with conventional weapons, rather than escalating to the use of weapons of mass destruction or nuclear warfare. It is one of two Clancy novels, including SSN (1996), that are not set in the Ryanverse.

The Rifle Rangers or Adventures in South Mexico (1850) is a novel by Captain Mayne Reid, set in Vera Cruz, Mexico during the Mexican War (1846–48)

Run Silent, Run Deep is a novel by Commander Edward L. Beach Jr. published in 1955 by Henry Holt & Co. Run Silent, Run Deep is also the name of a 1958 film of the same name starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. The story describes World War II submarine warfare in the Pacific Ocean, and deals with themes of vengeance, endurance, courage, loyalty and honor, and how these can be tested during wartime. The name refers to "silent running", a submarine stealth tactic.

Salt to the Sea is a 2016 historical fiction young adult novel by Ruta Sepetys. It tells the story of four individuals in World War II who make their way to the ill-fated MV Wilhelm Gustloff. The story also touches on the disappearance of the Amber Room, a world-famous, ornately decorated chamber stolen by the Nazis that has never been recovered.

SSN is a techno-thriller novel, created by Tom Clancy and Martin H. Greenberg and published on December 1, 1996 as a tie-in to the video game of the same name. It follows the missions of USS Cheyenne, a United States Navy nuclear attack submarine, during a fictional war between the United States and China over the Spratly Islands. SSN is the second Clancy novel after Red Storm Rising (1986) that is not set in the Ryanverse.

Team Yankee is a techno-thriller novel written in 1987 by Harold Coyle, then a major in the United States Army, whose subject is the actions of a company-sized armor unit of the United States Army in the World War III scenario as depicted by General Sir John Hackett in his novel, The Third World War: The Untold Story. General Hackett's scenario takes place in 1985; Coyle never specifies the year, but it is assumed to take place in the late 1980s. While Hackett's book emphasizes strategy and world politics, Coyles features the experiences of the tank crews and infantrymen fighting on the front lines.

Twilight's Last Gleaming is a 2014 novel by John Michael Greer. The novel is a work of speculative political fiction, in which a declining United States attempts to gain control of some desperately needed oil by overthrowing the government of Tanzania. This prompts an intervention by Tanzania's ally, the People's Republic of China, with disastrous consequences for the United States.

Ugly Rumours was the first novel by American writer Tobias Wolff. It was published only in Britain, in 1975, and has never been reprinted. The book does not appear in Wolff's list of publications included in recent books—the London Review of Books commented on this omission, stating that "to read (Ugly Rumours) is to understand why "—and when his novel Old School was published in 2004, all publicity copy referred to it as his first novel.

The War in 2020 is a 1991 war-adventure novel written by Ralph Peters. Taking place in a future dystopia, the novel's plot is spread over 15 years and mostly features the United States' efforts to defend the Soviet Union against an alliance of Japan, South Africa, and the Arab Islamic Union, a confederation of militant Islamic states. The novel is heavily written around the viewpoint of the lead protagonist, a U.S. Army air cavalry officer George Taylor.

War Trash is a novel by the Chinese author Ha Jin, who has long lived in the United States and who writes in English. It takes the form of a memoir written by the fictional character Yu Yuan, a man who eventually becomes a soldier in the Chinese People's Volunteer Army and who is sent to Korea to fight on the Communist side in the Korean War. The majority of the "memoir" is devoted to describing this experience, especially after Yu Yuan is captured by United Nations forces and imprisoned as a POW. The novel captured the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Williwaw is the debut novel of Gore Vidal, written when he was 19 and first mate of a U.S. Army supply ship stationed in the Aleutian Islands. The story combines war drama, maritime adventure and a murder plot. The book was first published in 1946 in the United States by E.P. Dutton. Williwaw is the term, widely thought to be Native American in origin, for a sudden, violent Katabatic wind common to the Aleutian Islands.

The Young Lions (1948) is a novel by Irwin Shaw about three soldiers in World War II.