Read With Jenna's September 2025 pick, "Buckeye" by Patrick Ryan, is a long and sweeping epic, covering decades in American history and how it coincides with two families.
When you're done, you might be left craving either more about American history, world wars or a family epic. Luckily, author Ryan recommended seven books that inspired "Buckeye" and may be followups to the book.
Below, find out what Ryan had to say about the books, which range from fiction to nonfiction.
"You might have seen the film adaptation, which is one of my favorite films ever. Still, even if you’re very familiar with the story it tells, if you haven’t read this novel, I can’t recommend it highly enough. A short and very intimate investigation into a family in the wake on one tragedy and headed toward another, told in the present tense. The interiority of the characters is utterly convincing, and what the novel says about forgiveness is gut-wrenching. It’s a gem of a novel."
"This is a fascinating and compulsively readable account of Richard Rubin’s project to interview every living First World War veteran — written by Rubin himself. What these nonagenarians and centenarians have to say, and the way they say it (drawing from memories that are still very close to them) will hold you on the edge of your seat and occasionally move you to tears."
“Childers writes the true, intimate and sometimes astonishing lives of three men who come home from the Second World War and find themselves struggling to re-assimilate. It’s not just their stories, though; it’s also the stories of their families and a myth-shattering portrait of a country ill-equipped to accommodate what we now call PTSD."
"Whenever I ask someone if they’ve read this book, the answer is almost always no. Even people who loved 'David Copperfield' and Oliver Twist. I know there’s only time for so many Dickens novels in your life — I think I’ve read less than half of them—but if you’re up for a wonderful, long, entertaining, emotional family drama with plenty of characters and lots of twists and turns, I recommend this one."
"Two seemingly quiet novels set in the small fictional town of Holt, Colorado. In a no-nonsense voice but lyrical voice, these books dive deep into the hearts and psychologies of characters you’ll fall in love with and care about — including two elderly brothers who are hats-off unforgettable.“
"No one nails character as exactly as Elizabeth Strout, and this is the novel where she takes all the characters she’s been writing about for years and brings them into one narrative. Time is the wind in the sail of this beautiful book, and no one — not even Olive Kitteridge — can stop it."
"A heartbreaking and fascinating collection of more than 200 letters written by American soldiers in Vietnam. Each letter is followed by a short update on what happened to the writer —including where the men who came home are now, and what they’re doing. It’s a devastating and necessary book. Collectively, it makes a defining voice from that war that the country couldn’t hear while it was happening."