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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Ten Vietnam Books That Claim On Their Jackets To Be Better Than The Others

1. Michael Herr: ‘Dispatches’ (Picador)
“The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time.”

2. Lt Gen Harold G Moore (Retd) and Joseph L Galloway ‘We Were Soldiers Once… And Young’ (Corgi)
“The most significant book to come out of the Vietnam War.”

3. James Webb ‘Fields Of Fire’ (Bantam)
“In my opinion, the finest of the Vietnam novels.”

4. Robert Mason – Chickenhawk (Corgi)
“The best book to come out of Vietnam.”

5. Tim O’Brien – If I Die In A Combat Zone’ (Flamingo)
“May be the greatest piece of work to come out of Vietnam.”

6. Neil Sheehan – A Bright And Shining Lie (Pimlico)
“If you ever read just one history of the Vietnam war, read this one.”

7. Stanley Karnow ‘Vietnam: A History’
“The most complete account [of the Vietnam war] to date.”

8. Al Santoli – ‘Everything We Had’ (Ballantine)
“If I had to recommend only one book as a guide to stepping into the skin of a Vietnam veteran, [this] would be it.”

9. Philip Caputo – ‘A Rumor Of War’ (Owl)
“To call it the best book about Vietnam is to trivialise it."

10. Michael Lind - 'Vietnam: The Necessary War' (Touchstone)
"If you only read one book on the Vietnam war, this is it."

4 comments:

Craig said...

See also "like a modern Catcher In The Rye"

Mark said...

Indeed. Or Catch 22. You've buggered up the next list now...

Anonymous said...

"The Things They Carried" is my fave vietnam book, it's better than sodding "Dispatches" anyway, a complete rambling shitestain of a book.

Mark said...

I might check that out. I liked Dipatches, but I was an impressionable 18-y-o at the time. Herr's articles from that time for US Esquire are brilliant