By Jon Krakauer
416 pages; Doubleday

Talk about an inspired pairing of subject and author: Jon Krakauer is the exhaustive chronicler of the lives of brave American iconoclasts ( Into Thin Air, Into the Wild ); Pat Tillman was the pro football player who joined the army after 9/11, only to die two years later in Afghanistan, a victim of "friendly fire." Where Men Win Glory , Krakauer's account of Tillman's life—and of the way the Bush administration tried to turn Tillman's story into pro-war propaganda—is both meticulous and passionate, and reveals a far more complex and emotional character than the mythical American "hero."

— Sara Nelson