This book discussion series is tailored for veterans and their families. Service members of all eras, their spouses, and adult children are welcome. We will read and discuss three books written in very different styles but connected by themes of war, courage, honor, and trauma. Meetings will be held the first Saturday of the month 2-4 p.m. at Lexington Park library. Participants should plan to attend all sessions. Materials provided. Book descriptions are from Barnes & Nobles unless otherwise noted.

The Veterans Book Group is coordinated statewide by Maryland Humanities and is presented locally in partnership with St. Mary’s County Library. It is supported in part by Lockheed Martin, David Bruce Smith, and the Wawa Foundation.

If you need special accommodations for any Library event or program, please submit our Accommodations Request form as soon as possible.

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March 02:The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11” (The New York Times Book Review), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is a sweeping, unprecedented history of the long road to September 11.

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April 06: Bomber by Len Deighton

Len Deighton — one of the masters of twentieth-century espionage fiction — combines his expertise as both historian and novelist in Bomber, the classic World War II novel that relates, in devastating detail, the twenty-four-hour story of an allied bombing raid. Told through the eyes of protag­onists on all sides and astonishingly precise in its depictions of planes, weapons, and behind-the-scenes war strategy, this is Len Deighton at his best. An unforgettable portrait of war, both in the air and on the ground.

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May 04: The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam  by George Black - Part One: War

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June 01: The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam - Part Two: Peace

The moving story of how a small group of people—including two Vietnam veterans—forced the U.S. government to take responsibility for the ongoing horrors—agent orange and unexploded munitions—inflicted on the Vietnamese. George Black recounts the inspirational story of the small cast of characters—veterans, scientists, and Quaker-inspired pacifists, and their Vietnamese partners—who used their moral authority, scientific and political ingenuity, and sheer persistence to attempt to heal the horrors that were left in the wake of the military engagement in Southeast Asia. Their intersecting story is one of reconciliation and personal redemption, embedded in a vivid portrait of Vietnam today, with all its startling collisions between past and present, in which one-time mortal enemies, in the endless shape-shifting of geopolitics, have been transformed into close allies and partners. 

The Long Reckoning is being published on the fiftieth anniversary of the day the last American combat soldier left Vietnam.