I knew when Billy Don told me that he was going to eat a Baby Ruth candy bar out of the commode in front of Sergeant Luna he was serious about a Section Eight. He wanted out.

Jimmy Lee Hickam grew up along Red Dog Road, a dead-end strip of gravel and mud buried deep in the bowels of Appalachian Ohio. It is the poorest road, in the poorest county, in the poorest region of the state. To make things worse, the name Hickam is synonymous with trouble. Jimmy Lee hails from a heathen mix of thieves, moonshiners, drunkards, and general anti-socials that for decades have clung to both the hardscrabble hills and the iron bars of every jail cell in the region. This life, ...

With "shattering prose," the New York Times–bestselling author of From Here to Eternity captures the intense combat in the battle of Guadalcanal ( San Francisco Chronicle).In August of 1942 the first American marines charged Guadalcanal, igniting a six-month battle for two thousand square miles of jungle and sand. In that gruesome stretch sixty thousand Americans made the jump from boat to beach, and one in nine did not return. James Jone...

An estranged daughter returns home to discover her father’s WWII history in a “beautifully written” novel of family rifts and the burdens of racism (Historical Novel Society).Rachel Fleischer has good reasons not to be at her father’s deathbed. Foaling season is at hand and her horses are becoming restless. But her horse manager, Malachi—more of a father to Rachel than Marty ever was—convinces her to go.When a stranger at her father’s funeral delivers an od...

One of the country’s most-acclaimed and popular novelists offers a selection of a dozen short stories set in James Lee Burke’s most beloved milieu, the Deep South.“America’s best novelist” (The Denver Post), two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke is renowned for his lush, suspense-charged portrayals of the Deep South—the people, the crime, the hope and despair infused in the bayou landscape. This stunning anthology takes us back to where Burke's heart...

An ex-soldier who rebuilt America after nuclear holocaust now faces a Russian invasion in this action-packed adventure from a USA Today–bestselling author.In the aftermath of germ and nuclear warfare, of plague and pillage and bloody anarchy, the fate of a divided world hangs by a slender thread. Ben Raines and his SUSA Rebels are on one side and the enemies of freedom are on the other. But Ben Raines has sworn to make the dream of government by the people a realit...

Winner of the PEN/Malamud Award, Airships is a "strong, original, tragic and funny" story collection of "the creative Southern tradition" (Alfred Kazin).One of the most revered short story collections of the past fifty years, Airships remains a vital text in the history of the American short story. The award-winning contemporary classic features twenty wildly original, exuberant, often hilarious stories that celebrate the universal peculiarities of the new...

A definitive, career-spanning, best-of tribute to a master of the modern American short story, featuring work from his final unpublished collection.A fitting summation of one of America's greatest short story masters, this towering tribute features stories from Airships, Captain Maximus, Bats Out of Hell, High Lonesome, and Barry Hannah's final unfinished collection, Long, Last, Happy. The astonishingly varied stories in...

An American soldier works in post-surrender Japan in a novel "reminiscent of The English Patient . . . sad, wistful and romantic" ( Los Angeles Times).When Francis Vancleave joins the army in 1944, he expects his term of service to pass uneventfully. His singular talent—typing ninety-five words a minute—keeps him off the battlefield and in General MacArthur's busy Tokyo headquarters, where his days are filled with paperwork in triplicate and lette...

The High Ground is the story of Private Ty Nichols' 365-day tour of duty in Vietnam, told with the honesty of a youthful infantryman simply trying to make it to the next day.Ty spends time with all the players, including the draftees who could have cared less, the lifers who were determined to stop Communism dead in its tracks, the enemy, and the freedom loving civilians of South Vietnam.It's all here. The fighting, dying, massage parlors, whorehouses, the racism, ...

This now-classic tale of SEAL combat action in Vietnam marked Dick Couch's debut as a novelist in 1990 and sold more than 100,000 copies. Hailed for its authenticity, it was the first novel about Navy SEALs to be written by one of their own. Couch, a SEAL platoon leader in the Mekong Delta from 1970 to 1971, includes gripping descriptions of dangerous operations that continue to attract a broad audience, with many bestselling authors calling his book a sensational story they can't put down...

At some stage, Wilson Lowery’s life took a wrong turn. When he finds himself in the hospital after an alcohol and drug-fueled binge, the doctor gives him an ultimatum to either turn his life around, or die.Depressed and without a safety net, he signs up to become a Green Beret in the U.S. Army. Soon after he enters basic training, he realizes that he isn’t cut out for the army and tries to quit, but he isn’t allowed to leave. The especially demanding first weeks of training put him ...