Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo (#27, Classic)

A couple quote worthy lines from the book:

"Nothing is bigger than life. There is nothing noble in death."

"America fought a war for liberty in 1776. Lots of guys died. And in the end does America have more liberty than Canada or Australia who didn't fight at all?"

In this anti-war novel, published in 1939 and set during WWI, Joe leaves Los Angeles to go to war and ends up in a hospital bed as an invalid. But not any invalid, Joe has had both his arms and legs amputated, he cannot hear, cannot speak, and cannot see. Yet, his mind is alive and he spends his time trying to figure out day from night, memories from dreams, and some way to communicate with the world.

When his tap tap tapping of Morse code for "help" is finally understood by the hospital, all he gets in return is a "what do you want?" The years he spent trying to let them know that he may be nothing but a stump on the outside, but that he was alive on the inside and ready to show himself to the world to show what can happen during war was all shot down with their final response, "That is against regulations."

Just a bit depressing.