The Veteran's Bookstore
| We open the bookstore with a selection of some of the best novels and non-fiction about Vietnam. "Best" is subjective, of course, and you may not agree with this selection. We also include both fiction and non-fiction, but the requirement is that the author was really there.For this reason, we are leaving the "best" section open-ended. We will add your favorite if you send us a brief email telling us why it belongs in this group. |
 A Tale of Three Wars: A Novel
by Edward B. Atkeson, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
A "one of a kind" treatment, A Tale of Three Wars is the first to portray the Vietnam War through the eyes of officers in three different armies: United States, South Vietnamese, and Viet Cong. Each character, finds himself caught up in a struggle with the policies of the organization in which he serves. Many of the events described came from Gen. Atkeson's experience, not his imagination.
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 Fields of Fire
by James Webb.
What is the best Vietnam War novel? This is the always-arguable question among those who have read many excellent ones. There is no doubt, however, that Fields of Fire is among the best. Jim Webb served with the 5th Marines in Vietnam, won the Navy Cross, and eventually became Secretary of the Navy. This story is the day to day reality of a platoon of Marines in the area southwest of Danang known as The Arizona Territory. It is a moving and gripping tale.
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 A Rumor of War
Phillip Caputo was among the first combat troops to arrive in Vietnam in 1965. This non-fiction account of those early days in the conflict are well written. He returned to Vietnam as a newspaper correspondent in 1975, in time for the fall of Saigon. His account is gripping and emotional. |
 Better Times Than These
Winston Groom writes the story of a young Army lieutentant in Vietnam. The young officer has been well trained in the "by the book" ways of the Army, but he quickly learns that in Vietnam you throw the book away. Winston Groom later went on to write Forest Gump. |
Goodbye Vietnam
by Robert W. Wood.
This collection of fictional remembrances of a Marine during the Vietnam conflict is told in a series of short pieces that describe the particular horrors of this war through one man's eyes. From "The Gift," a story about boot camp and his love-hate for the drill sergeant, to "Zelda Waiting," which finds him leaving Vietnam "packed in the back of a truck with all our paraphernalia and our travel brochures."
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 A Sense of Honor
By James Webb. Jim Webb wrote Fields of Fire, perhaps one of the best Vietnam war novels. He then went on to write this novel, which depicts life at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis during that era. Webb was a 1968 graduate of the Academy, and he takes us inside the walls, to a place outsiders never see. This is a powerful story of honor and courage at a time when the world seemed to be coming apart.
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Longshadows
by Kent White.
It is 1969 and the Vietnam War has been waging for over five years. The North Vietnamese Army has increased their cross-border attacks on American troops in South Vietnam. Elite Green Beret reconnaissance teams, operating covertly deep inside Laos, discover the presence of a Caucasian soldier fighting alongside NVA troops. Russian army advisor? Foreign mercenary? American deserter?
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 If I Die in a Combat Zone
by Tim O'Brien.
A searing, intensely personal account of Tim O'Brien's experience as a
Vietnam foot soldier that takes readers behind the infantryman's
rifle--from the minefields of My Lai to the darkness of the ghostly
tunnels--in a heartfelt masterwork of its genre.
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 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",wrote The New York Times of
O'Brien's now classic novel of Vietnam. Winner of the 1979
National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the
peculiar blend of horror and hallucinatory comedy that marked this
strangest of wars. Reality and fantasy merge in this fictional
account of one private's sudden decision to lay down his gun and
walk home.
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 The Things They Carried
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 later.
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 The 13th Valley
by John M. Del Vecchio.
A work that has served as a literary cornerstone for the Vietnam generation, The 13th Valley follows the strange and terrifying Vietnam combat experiences of James Chelini, a telephone-systems installer who finds himself an infantryman in territory controlled by the North Vietnamese Army. Spiraling deeper and deeper into a world of conflict and darkness, his harrowing account of Chelini's plunge and immersion into jungle warfare traces his evolution from a semipacifist to an all-out warmonger
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 The Killing Zone : My Life in the Vietnam War
by Frederick Downs.
Fred Downs writes a tight and gritty story about reality in Vietnam. Unlike many other stories that came later, Down's story is neither self-serving nor embellished. He calls it as he saw it in a highly readable account of life as a grunt.
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