Six top books about self-deception

Emily Fridlund is the author of the story collection Catapult and History of Wolves, a debut novel that was a finalist for the Man Booker Award. One of her six favorite books about self-deception, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

I first read this collection of brutal Vietnam War stories as a teenager. It has never left me. It is the book I return to whenever I need to think through again how the stories we tell can obscure truths, yes, but also — crucially and sometimes despite ourselves — expose them.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Things They Carried is among Janine di Giovanni's top ten books of war reportage, The American Scholar editors' eleven best sentences in literature, Simon Mawer's five top war novels, Olen Steinhauer's six favorite books, and is one of Roger “R.J.” Ellory's five favorite human dramas. Melinda L. Pash, author of In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the Korean War, says The Things They Carried changed her life.

--Marshal Zeringue