You Pick BestYouPickBest

The 19 Greatest American War Novels

By YPB Team

Trench realism sits against black comedy here, alongside the Vietnam books written decades after the shooting stopped.

  1. Catch-22 — ranked #11
    Catch-22
    Joseph Heller's 1961 satire of a bomber squadron trapped by its own regulations.
    1000pts
  2. Slaughterhouse-Five — ranked #22
    Slaughterhouse-Five
    Vonnegut's 1969 novel of Billy Pilgrim, the Dresden firebombing and time coming unstuck.
    649pts
  3. Johnny Got His Gun — ranked #33
    Johnny Got His Gun
    Dalton Trumbo's 1939 novel narrated by a soldier left without limbs, face or voice.
    525pts
  4. The Caine Mutiny — ranked #44
    The Caine Mutiny
    Herman Wouk's 1951 Pulitzer winner about a minesweeper crew and a captain they push out.
    525pts
  5. Going After Cacciato — ranked #55
    Going After Cacciato
    Tim O'Brien's 1978 National Book Award winner, in which a squad chases a deserter walking to Paris.
    525pts
  6. The Naked and the Dead — ranked #66
    The Naked and the Dead
    Norman Mailer's 1948 debut, a platoon novel drawn from his own Pacific service.
    444pts
  7. For Whom the Bell Tolls — ranked #77
    For Whom the Bell Tolls
    Hemingway's 1940 novel of an American dynamiter behind fascist lines in the Spanish Civil War.
    444pts
  8. Gravity's Rainbow — ranked #88
    Gravity's Rainbow
    Pynchon's 1973 National Book Award winner, V-2 rockets and paranoia across the last months of the war.
    444pts
  9. A Farewell to Arms — ranked #99
    A Farewell to Arms
    Hemingway's 1929 novel of an American ambulance driver and a British nurse on the Italian front.
    444pts
  10. Cold Mountain — ranked #1010
    Cold Mountain
    Charles Frazier's 1997 novel of a wounded Confederate walking home across the Carolinas.
    345pts
  11. Matterhorn — ranked #1111
    Matterhorn
    Karl Marlantes's 2010 novel of a Marine company taking and abandoning a hill in Vietnam.
    345pts
  12. The Yellow Birds — ranked #1212
    The Yellow Birds
    Kevin Powers's 2012 debut about two young soldiers in Al Tafar and the promise one of them breaks.
    345pts
  13. The Thin Red Line — ranked #1313
    The Thin Red Line
    James Jones's 1962 Guadalcanal novel, later filmed by Terrence Malick.
    345pts
  14. The Things They Carried — ranked #1414
    The Things They Carried
    Tim O'Brien's 1990 linked stories of an infantry platoon in Vietnam and what fiction can carry that fact cannot.
    222pts
  15. The Killer Angels — ranked #1515
    The Killer Angels
    Michael Shaara's 1974 Pulitzer winner, the battle of Gettysburg told from both commands.
    222pts
  16. Tree of Smoke — ranked #1616
    Tree of Smoke
    Denis Johnson's 2007 National Book Award winner, intelligence work unravelling across Vietnam.
    222pts
  17. From Here to Eternity — ranked #1717
    From Here to Eternity
    James Jones's 1951 National Book Award winner about the peacetime army at Schofield Barracks before Pearl Harbor.
    222pts
  18. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk — ranked #1818
    Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
    Ben Fountain's 2012 satire of a decorated Iraq squad paraded at a Dallas Cowboys game.
    222pts
  19. The Red Badge of Courage — ranked #1919
    The Red Badge of Courage
    Stephen Crane's 1895 novel of a young Union soldier's first battle, written by a man who had seen none.
    222pts

#usa291#books87#war4#classics474

Nobody has rated this ranking yet. Vote first, then say whether the ranking was worth it.

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first!

0/1000
Make your own rankingAny question with 2–50 answers. AI fills in options and pictures in a minute.Create →Add rankings to your siteEmbed any ranking. Your readers vote right on your page.How it works →