Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of interrelated short pieces which ultimately reads with the dramatic force and tension of a novel. Yet each one of the... (more)

Fallen Angels

by Walter Dean Myers

Richie Perry, Lobel, Johnson, Brunner, and Peewee are all in Vietnam. They came there for different reasons, but now they share a single dream -- getting out alive.

The Things They Carried A Work of Fiction

The Things They Carried A Work of Fiction

by Tim O'Brien

In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato--a novel about the Vietnam War--won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades... (more)

A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving, John Irving, John Irving, John Irving

Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God's instrument; he is. This is John Irving's most comic novel, yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character. "Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating and darkly comic...Dickensian in scope....Quite stunning and very ambitious." LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW "John Irving is an abundantly and even joyfully talented storyteller."... (more)

The Quiet American

by Graham Greene

Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler finds it hard to stand and watch.

The Wednesday Wars

by Gary D. Schmidt

Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero in THE WEDNESDAY WARS—a wonderfully witty and compelling novel about a teenage boy’s mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year. Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like... (more)

Up Country

by Nelson Demille

In Up Country, Nelson DeMille cannily revives the army career ofChief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, the cynical, hardworking CriminalInvestigation Division man who was forcibly retired after solving the high-profile killing in The General'sDaughter. Brenner's called back to investigate the murder of a youngarmy lieutenant by his captain. The catch is, the crime took place during theheat of the Tet Offensive, and... (more)

Tree of Smoke: A Novel

by Denis Johnson

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That’s me. This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in... (more)

Going After Cacciato

by Tim O'Brien

"To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby-Dick a novel about whales." So wrote the New York Times of Tim O'Brien's now classic novel of Vietnam. Winner of the 1979 National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked this strangest of wars. In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier... (more)

A Bright Shining Lie

John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

by Neil Sheehan

Sheehan's tragic biography of John Paul Vann is also a sweeping history of America's seduction, entrapment and disillusionment in Vietnam.

In the Lake of the Woods

by Tim O'Brien

First published to critical acclaim by Houghton Mifflin, Tim O’Brien’s celebrated classic In the Lake of the Woods now returns to the house in a gorgeous new Mariner paperback edition. This riveting novel of love and mystery from the author of The Things They Carried examines the lasting impact of the twentieth century’s legacy of violence and warfare, both at home and abroad. When long-hidden secrets about the... (more)

Dispatches (Vintage International)

by Michael Herr, Varduhi Varderesyan

"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre. " . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

by Andrew X. Pham

Winner of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Winner of the Whiting Writers' Award A Seattle Post-Intelligencer Best Book of the Year Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland. ... (more)

Vietnam: The War Nobody Won (Headline Series)

Vietnam: The War Nobody Won (Headline Series)

by Stanley Karnow

Provides a comprehensive look at both sides of the Vietnam War through a collection of personal tales and delves into the political and military events in the United States and elsewhere that originally caused the war and the brought it to an end. Reprint. TV tie-in."

A Rumor of War

by Philip Caputo

When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man’s experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today’s students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate... (more)

In Country (P.S.)

by Bobbie Ann Mason

In the summer of 1984, the war in Vietnam came home to Sam Hughes, whose father was killed there before she was born. The soldier-boy in the picture never changed. In a way that made him dependable. But he seemed so innocent. "Astronauts have been to the moon," she blurted out to the picture. "You missed Watergate. I was in the second grade." She stared at the picture, squinting her eyes, as if she expected it... (more)

Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam

by Cynthia Kadohata

CRACKER IS ONE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY'S MOST VALUABLE WEAPONS: a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. The fate of entire platoons rests on her keen sense of smell. She's a Big Deal, and she likes it that way. Sometimes Cracker remembers when she was younger, and her previous owner would feed her hot dogs and let her sleep in his bed. That was nice, too. Rick Hanski is headed to... (more)

If I die in a combat zone;: Box me up and ship me home

If I die in a combat zone;: Box me up and ship me home

by Tim O'Brien

Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato , Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and... (more)

The Lover

by Marguerite Duras, Barbara Bray

Back in print in paperback, "an exquisite jewel of a novel, as multifaceted as a diamond, as seamless and polished as a pearl" ("Boston Herald"). This edition includes an Introduction by Maxine Hong Kingston that looks back at Duras's world from an intriguing new perspective--that of a visitor to Vietnam today.

The Best and the Brightest

by David Halberstam

"A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience." -- The New York Times "<The> most comprehensive saga of how America became involved in Vietnam. It is also the Iliad of the American empire and the Odyssey of this nation's search for its idealistic soul. THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST is almost like watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller." -- The Boston Globe "Deeply moving . . . We cannot help but feel... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: vietnam

by Tim O'Brien

by Walter Dean Myers

by Tim O'Brien

by John Irving, John Irving, John Irving, John Irving

by Graham Greene

by Gary D. Schmidt

by Nelson Demille

by Denis Johnson

by Tim O'Brien

John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

by Neil Sheehan

by Tim O'Brien

by Michael Herr, Varduhi Varderesyan

by Andrew X. Pham

by Stanley Karnow

by Philip Caputo

by Bobbie Ann Mason

by Cynthia Kadohata

by Tim O'Brien

by Marguerite Duras, Barbara Bray

by David Halberstam