This revealing and entertaining collection of true stories documents one man’s life in the British army from the time of his enlistment to his departure more than 24 years later. Ranging from humorous and sad to absurd and amazing, this account of a young man who rose through the ranks to become a regimentals sergeant major covers his time spent in conventional and special forces and as an instructor in the territorial army from 1970 to 1994. Telling tales of bureaucratic bungling, incompetence, and survival in enemy territory, this personal history reveals how he and fellow soldiers handled the day-to-day realities of life on and off the field.

This book explores how military memoirs come to be written and published. Looking at the journeys through which soldiers and other military personnel become writers, the authors draw on over 250 military memoirs published since 1980 about service with the British armed forces, and on interviews with published military memoirists who talk in detail about the writing and production of their books. A range of themes are explored including: the nature of the military memoir; motivations for writing; authors’ reflections on their readerships; inclusions and exclusions within the text; the memories and materials that authors draw on; the collaborations that make the production and publication of military memoirs possible; and the issues around the design of military memoirs' distinctive covers. Written by two leading commentators on the sociology of the military, Bringing War to Book offers a new and original argument about the representations of war and the military experience as a process of social production. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including sociology, history, and cultural studies.

Crispin is a "circus baby," born in a caravan, working as a daemon handler and aerialist... until an accident on the high wire casts him out into a world even stranger that the circus that nurtured him. The War in the Waste Crispin falls headlong into the arms of Rae, an orphan girl of equally exotic origins. And soars in daemon-powered biplanes over the wastelands of the Raw, joining the awesome battle between Ferupe's slow-dying Queen and her adversary, the Lizard Significant.

Garbage Boy—a.k.a. Scarface, a.k.a. William—has had it rough his entire life. Facing off against a deadbeat dad and his mom’s abusive boyfriend, he’s had to fight every step of the way just to survive. Not only that, his family’s low social status makes him an object of ridicule and abuse among his peers and the community at large. That all begins to change when Garbage Boy meets up with Mister and Stone Pony, two mysterious men who enlist his aid in their growing sanitation enterprise. Who would have thought picking up garbage would be the road to redemption, never mind riches? But not even that comes easily for Garbage Boy. Although Garbage Boy’s situation improves remarkably at first, the deeper his involvement with Mister and Stone Pony, the more complicated his life becomes, to the point he risks losing everything he’s fought so hard to gain. The book implies an ethical question “Does a wrong become right if you have been wronged all along?”

Ha Jin’s masterful new novel casts a searchlight into a forgotten corner of modern history, the experience of Chinese soldiers held in U.S. POW camps during the Korean War. In 1951 Yu Yuan, a scholarly and self-effacing clerical officer in Mao’s “volunteer” army, is taken prisoner south of the 38th Parallel. Because he speaks English, he soon becomes an intermediary between his compatriots and their American captors.With Yuan as guide, we are ushered into the secret world behind the barbed wire, a world where kindness alternates with blinding cruelty and one has infinitely more to fear from one’s fellow prisoners than from the guards. Vivid in its historical detail, profound in its imaginative empathy, War Trash is Ha Jin’s most ambitious book to date.

War's End Omnibus includes: Book 1: The Storm Society has collapsed. She almost gave up. But now she's fighting for two. Jess Aaronson's world has descended into madness. She lost her family to the brutal chaos of America's collapse, and nearly lost her spirit from the brutal abuse that followed. But now that she's pregnant, she has a new reason to keep fighting… As she comes to terms with the life growing inside her, Jess flees Tent Five and descends into a land without law. In search of the only family she has left and the home she left behind, the darkness threatens to consume both her and her unborn child. Can Jess find her family, or will her escape come with the ultimate price? Book 2: A Brave New World The long-awaited sequel to War's End: The Storm - Jess has returned to her hometown, Warsend. There she and her family will rebuild their lives and learn lessons about love, and loss, and the strength of perseverance. Miles away, Chris longs for family, for children, and dreams of the home he lost. The danger is not over. Jess must face her greatest fear and overcome the nightmares that have plagued her for the past decade. Book 3: Tales of the Collapse Society has collapsed. The world burns. Yet, somehow, humanity survives... Now, in the third book in this intense and evocative post-apocalyptic saga, we witness the end of the world through the experiences of other familiar faces. Through nine interconnected episodes, discover the stories behind the stories: Resonant and emotional tales of love, loss, survival, and triumph that paint a vivid and frighteningly believable picture of America in the midst of societal collapse. Existing fans of the War's End series will rediscover characters they've already met on Jess's fraught journey - while new readers will be swept up in storytelling that has been described as "unforgettable" and "heartbreaking, but uplifting." Either way, it's impossible not to be moved by the achingly human tales that challenge us all to wonder how we'd handle the end of the world.