I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to understand the consequences of an event that happened when I was six, on a September Tuesday, when my mom had a haircut appointment and I saw the coverage of the deadliest terrorist attack of all time on a TV in the salon.

When I was 16, a friend of mine decided that it was time she learned what, exactly, had happened on 9/11. She earnestly described the movements of the hijackers and the falling of the towers to me as we hit the ten year anniversary of the attacks.

 For my part, I was more interested in what happened after the attacks. Sometime in high school I picked up a copy of “Way of the Knife,” about how the CIA regained its paramilitary authority during the war on terror. I’ve probably read a dozen books about America’s longest wars, not to mention books on related topics, podcasts, longform reporting, and even the odd novel. I make no claims to comprehensive knowledge, and I am sure there are excellent books out there that I have not yet read, but these are a few of the ones I found most enlightening.

• No Good Men Among the Living – Anand Gopal

This is the only book I’ve read that centers the lives of ordinary Afghans, and it is extraordinary. Gopal follows a Taliban fighter, an Afghan official in the new government and a house wife as they make the best decisions that they can after the American invasion. Published in 2014, it presages many of the unraveling points that have played out since.

• The Fighters — C. J. Chivers

One of the most extraordinary works of literary journalism I have read, Chivers traces the life of several service members into, out of, and through Iraq and Afghanistan. The book begins by baldly stating that the wars failed, and then proceeds to detail what that failure cost. Although Chivers was present for most of the events, and is painstakingly accurate, he never appears as a character, instead letting the troops and their friends and relatives speak for themselves.

• The Afghanistan Papers — Craig Whitlock

Through a long running FOIA battle, Whitlock and colleagues were able to extract the largely unredacted interviews conducted by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. These interviews are largely with officers, removed a step or two from the battle front but closer to the ground than the policy makers in Washington; the middle management of the war. This perspective particularly highlights the systemic policy failures of the war.

• Reign of Terror — Spencer Ackerman

I have written previously on this block about Ackerman’s book, and refer readers to it, but it really is the best overview of the war at home and its impact on American politics.

• The Guantanamo Diary — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

The Guantanamo Diary lays out what it is like to live under America’s peculiar imprisonment for terror suspects, carved out of a naval base in a legal black hole. The Diary is an extraordinary book, and essential for anyone trying to understand the consequences of America’s embrace of torture and indefinite detention.