From the Archive: Remembering Veterans

Although the Library will be closed this Monday, November 11 as we honor those who have served our country, you can still access the Library’s online collections, including podcasts from archived ALOUD programs. To commemorate Veterans Day, here’s a few specially selected podcasts on topics from women soldiers to one of contemporary fiction’s most celebrated war novels.

Brian Turner
Phantom Noise: An Evening with Soldier-Poet Brian Turner
Turner’s poems reflect his experiences as a soldier–seven years in the US Army, including a year as infantry team leader in Iraq–with penetrating lyric power and compassion. (Here’s a link to a reflection on this event by ALOUD curator Louise Steinman.)

Sebastian Junger
The author of A Perfect Storm turns his empathetic eye to a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

Tim O’Brien
A reading and conversation honoring the 20th anniversary of one of America’s most important novels, a book as vitally important for anyone interested in the Vietnam War as it is for those concerned with the craft of storytelling.

Karl Marlantes
What It’s Like To Go To War
Having spent the last 40 years examining his experiences in Vietnam, Marlantes, the decorated war veteran and bestselling author (Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War), discusses his visceral new nonfiction book about the psychological and spiritual toll that combat takes on those who fight.

Tracy Kidder
The Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgetting
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains tells the inspiring tale of Deogratias (Deo), a young medical student from the mountains of Burundi, who narrowly survived civil war and genocide before seeking a new life in America.

Helen Benedict
The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq
A work of brilliant and compassionate reporting, “a must-read for everyone who cares about women, justice, fairness, the military, and the United States.” (Katha Pollitt, The Nation)

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