by JULIE BOSMAN - New York Times - Published: March 18, 2012
Now that American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is winding down, the warriors are telling their stories.
Bookstores have been flooded with first-person accounts that have emerged from the wars, especially by members of the Navy SEALs, that offer insider looks at combat and harrowing real-life drama.
Readers have been snapping up the books, eager to get a glimpse behind the fog of war and ready to embrace stories that accentuate heroism instead of the often dreary developments reported in daily news accounts. Seeing some of these books rise to the top of best-seller lists, publishers are rushing to sign up similar titles, to be released in the next year.
“The Trident,” an autobiography by Jason Redman, a member of the Navy SEALs, will detail his multiple combat deployments, recovery from injuries and devotion to his faith and spouse. It will be released next year by William Morrow, part of HarperCollins.
Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, will publish “SEAL Survival Guide,” a book detailing how to get through dangerous situations by thinking like a member of the Navy SEALs, written by Cade Courtley, a television host and former member of such a unit.
The offerings go beyond real-life stories. In May, Thomas Dunne Books, part of Macmillan, will release “SEAL Team 666,” a novel about a trainee who has been recruited into an organization that “deals with supernatural threats, just as a powerful and ancient cult makes its final push at destroying the world,” the publisher said.
The books appear to be part of the next generation of writing from the wars, following a first crop of books by journalists, like “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, about Iraq.
While books about the military and military history have a long track record in both nonfiction and fiction, some publishers said the genre had never been as visible or popular as it is now.
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