Gulf War I Booklist

Books about the first Gulf War. The list includes both fiction and nonfiction.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

Fiction

• The Fist of God
  Author: Forsyth, Frederick
  Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553091263 Date: 1994
  PW
  The author of such classics as The Day of the Jackal returns with a seamless blending of the real and the imagined, of political assassination and high-tech military might, set behind the scenes of the Gulf War. As coalition forces ready for battle against the Iraqi Army, a Western spy in Baghdad seeks a mysterious traitor named Jericho, who may hold the key to locating Saddam Hussein's secret weapon.
  Updated 4.7.03
• Dear Mr. President: Stories
  Author: Hudson, Gabe
  Publisher: Knopf $ 19 ISBN: 0375413952 Date: 2002
  PW
  From one of the brilliant newcomers featured in The New Yorker's Fiction Debut Writers of 2001" issue--eight stories and a novella that take on the Gulf War with audacity, inventiveness, humor, and a startling emotional resonance.
  Updated 4.7.03
• We Pierce: A Novel
  Author: Huebner, Andrew
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743212770 Date: 2003
  As he did with American by Blood, Huebner turns his family's long experience with violence and war into breath-taking literary fiction. In We Pierce, Huebner has chosen another subject that's sure to strike a chord with his readers: fighting for what you believe in, no matter the cost.
  Updated 4.7.03
• The Sand Cafe
  Author: Macfarquhar, Neil
  Publisher: Public Affairs $26 ISBN: 1586483684 Date: 2006
  LJ
  The Cairo bureau chief for the "New York Times" goes inside the private lives and professional mischief of war reporters waiting for the first Gulf War to begin in this bitingly funny first novel.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 2.28.06
• Pearl of Kuwait
  Author: Paine, Tom
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151005184 Date: 2003
  California surfer Cody "Cowboy" Carmichael's life is forever changed when he meets Private Tommy Trang at boot camp. A powerful first novel by an award-winning writer, Paine has created an enthralling, joyful, and original story with the classic ingredients of love and war.
  Updated 4.7.03
• Monkey in the Middle
  Author: Pryor, Josh
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786711736 Date: 2003
  Set at the cusp of the future on the seedier sides of Los Angeles, Monkey in the Middle is a suspenseful and hilarious tale of reckless genetic engineering, post-traumatic stress disorder, and tainted love. Down-and-out Gulf War veteran Dutch Flowers returns to L.A. with a bad case of "compassion fatigue"--and acute paranoia. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 4.7.03
• Somewhere in a Desert
  Author: Sigaund, Dominique
  Publisher: Arcade List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 1559704926 Date: 1999
  Library Journal
  Desert Storm has ended. A body lies in no-man's land in the desert, across the Iraqi border between the allied front and a small Saudi village. It hasn't decomposed or burned in the sun. Its eves are open, and its mouth is smiling. No wounds show how the man died. No dog tags or insignia identify which side he fought on. The man is John Miller, an American soldier who has gone missing in action. While his wife, Mary, waits at home in the States for news of her husband, John has disappeared and died an absurd death. - Publisher marketing.
  
• The Consignment
  Author: Sutherland, Grant
  Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553801872 Date: 2003
  Captain Ned Rourke of the U.S. Rangers always expected that war would be hell. But in the Gulf War he was appalled to find that his own men were being cut down by weapons made by the biggest and best armaments manufacturer in the world--the U.S.A.
  Updated 4.7.03

Nonfiction

• Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War
  Author: Atkinson, Rick
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24.95 ISBN: 0395602904 Date: 1993
  PW Kirkus
  During the war with Iraq, the Pentagon imposed unprecedented restrictions on the media's access to the battlefield. But Rick Atkinson's Crusade, says the Chicago Tribune, "pierces the Pentagon's veil of secrecy and gives us a first-rate book about how the war was fought".
  Updated 4.7.03
• The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf
  Author: Gordon, Michael R. & General Bernard Trainor
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 27.95 ISBN: 0316321729 Date: 1995
  Kirkus
  Updated 4.7.03
• Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda
  Author: Hamzah, Khidr Abd Al-Abbas
  Publisher: Scribner $ 26 ISBN: 0684873869 Date: 2000
  PW
  The defector once responsible for Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program reveals for the first time what the CIA and Iraq desperately want to keep hidden -- that Saddam Hussein is devastatingly close to manufacturing nuclear weapons and has every intention of using them.
  Updated 4.7.03
• Martyr's Day: A Chronicle of a Small War
  Author: Kelly, Michael
  Publisher: Random $ 23 ISBN:0679411224 Date: 1993
  Kirkus | ALA Notable Book
  In this classic account of the Gulf War from all sides of the conflict, Michael Kelly brings Operation Desert Storm to vivid life. He watches bombs fall on Baghdad; waits for Scud attacks in Tel Aviv, hears horrific tales of rape and torture in Kuwait, and travels with Kurdish rebels at war with Saddam Hussein themselves. In the new foreword and afterword, Kelly places the Gulf War in the context of the other wars of the twentieth century and makes a case for its being the opening salvo in the first war of the twenty-first century.
  Updated 4.7.03
• A Woman at War: Storming Kuwait With the U.S. Marines
  Author: Moore, Molly
  Publisher: Scribner $ 22.50 ISBN: 068419418x Date: 1993
  PW
  Updated 4.7.03
• Hollow Victory: A Contrary View of the Gulf War
  Author: Record, Jeffrey
  Publisher: Brassey's $ 23 ISBN: 0028810465 Date: 1993
  PW
  Updated 4.7.03
• The Demonic Comedy: Some Detours in the Baghdad of Saddam Hussein
  Author: Roberts, Paul William
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374138230
  Kirkus PW
  At once both chillingly horrifying and hysterically funny, The Demonic Comedy is a unique travel memoir, an eyewitness testament to the horrors of dictatorship and the devastation of war. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 4.7.03
• Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
  Author: Swofford, Anthony
  Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743235355 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  When the Marines--or "jarheads" as they call themselves--are sent to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford is there, with a 100-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. In this powerful memoir, he weaves his war experience with vivid accounts of boot camp, reflections on the mythos of the Marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family.
  Updated 4.7.03

  Links:
  Frontline: The Gulf War
  Washington Post: Fog of War
  Historical Resources Branch US Army Center of Military History Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM Bibliography