My Library: My Bookshelf

Sass, Grit & Footnotes from My

Library

Coffee-stained, unapologetically cheeky, and sometimes brutally honest — stick around for the rest of the story, because history waits for no one.

Cheers!

My library isn’t just a personal reading list. It’s my bookish war room—where military history collides with raw reality, underlined passages, late-night tea stains, and the occasional bourbon spill and Sonic Cherry Limeades cups. If you're looking for a polished, parade-ground version of military history, you won’t find it here. That is not me.

What will you find? A curated chaos of military memoirs, academic deep-dives, obscure journals, emotional gut punches, and the kind of books and dissertations that make you whisper, Wait—why am I just now finding out about this?

As a veteran, military spouse, and historian, I’ve been exploring the untold and under-told aspects of military life—stories that often don’t appear in textbooks, military journals, or LinkedIn articles... perhaps a glimpse on social media. I had to go off-road —into archives, footnotes, secondhand stores, and digital wormholes — to find them. And now?

I’m sharing them with you.

What’s On the Shelves?

Whether you're a seasoned researcher, a military spouse hungry for representation, or a reader who loves to question the standard narrative, this library is for you. Expect titles that:

Tell the truth—memoirs that don’t sugarcoat (or ones that try a bit too hard to).

Challenge the canon—academic works that open up new frameworks.

Whisper the forgotten—letters and journals that remind us of who else was there.

Dig deeper into histories that go beyond the “great man”, timelines, and troop movements.

Finally, say it—“Hey, military spouses exist. And they did stuff, too...more than bake sales and Coffee meet and greets.”

Some books I love. Others frustrate me. All of them made me think. My Library space is about reckoning with the material, not blindly agreeing with it. It’s a journey through perseverance, service, sacrifice, and the quiet places in between.

What to Expect

I’ll continue to add to the library and highlight selected titles through regular blog posts. Some posts will explore what a specific book got so right. Others may unpack why a particular text fell short or how it helped shift my own research lens.

Read, reflect, overshare... repeat.

So, grab your coffee or bourbon (no judgment), kick off those combat boots, heels, or slippers... I’m a flip-flop girl myself, and go ahead and browse.

Warning: this might provoke strong opinions and trigger an immediate urge to share a quote or conversation with someone.

One Final Note

My Library is a tribute to the unpolished truths, the sidelined voices, and the relentless researchers and historians who continue to fight to bring those stories to light. If nothing else, let’s crack open the locked filing cabinets of American military history—and see what falls out.

Take Me to the Book Buffet

Here’s to read, reflect, and repeat