Akron Public Library

"Stephen Crane's immortal masterpiece about the nightmare of war was first published in 1895 and brought its young author immediate international fame. Set during the Civil War, it tells of the brutal disillusionment of a young recruit who had dreamed of the thrill and glory of war, only to find himself fleeing the horror of a battlefield. Shame over his cowardice drives him to seek to redeem himself by being wounded -- earning what he calls the "red...

"On the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I: a hardcover edition of the classic tale of a young German soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches, widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time. When twenty-year-old Paul Baumer and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under...

Since it was first published in 1974, "The Killer Angels" has become the most belove, widely-read Civil War novel of the post-World War II era. Shaara's unforgettable novel served as the basis for the acclaimed feature film Gettysburg, has sold millions of copies, and inspired the bestselling Civil War novels Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure by his son, Jeff Shaara. After more than a quarter of a century and three million copies in print,...

Viann and Isabelle have always been close despite their differences. Younger, bolder sister Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann lives a quiet and content life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. When World War II strikes and Antoine is sent off to fight, Viann and Isabelle's father sends Isabelle to help her older sister cope. As the war progresses, it's not only the sisters' relationship that is tested, but also...

Eager to enlist, fifteen-year-old Charley has a change of heart after experiencing both the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil War combat.

In a rural village in December 2004 Chechnya, a failed doctor Akhmed harbors the traumatized 8-year-old daughter of a father abducted by Russian forces and treats a series of wounded rebels and refugees, while exploring the shared past that binds him to the child.

The battlefield was soaked in blood. Screams of injured soldiers rang through the air. Eleven-year-old Nathaniel Knox knelt behind a rock, his gun clutched in his shaking hands. Nate had been heading to New York City to find his father. But now he was trapped in a terrible gunfight between American and British troops. -- But King George was like a snake with America gripped in his fangs -- and he didn't want to let go. So now it was war -- brutal,...

August 1943: In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his affair with his uncles young wife two years earlier. His life, in a brutal Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway, is a daily struggle to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, fro pitiless beatings. Until he receives a letter that will change him forever.

In The Yankee Widow, gifted storyteller Linda Lael Miller explores the complexities and heartbreak that families experienced as men took up arms to preserve the nation and defend their way of life. Told in a smart, assured and compelling voice, this is the story of Caroline, the young wife and childhood sweetheart of Jacob, who together live on a farm raising their daughter, Rachel, just outside of Gettysburg. When Jacob joins the Northern army to...

Abandoning her abusive fiance in New York in 1943 to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe, Irene Woodward befriends Dorothy Dunford as they join the Allied soldiers streaming into France after D-Day where they are embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald, and where Irene learns to trust again through their friendship.