Take Ten: The Vietnam War
We're seeing a renewed interest in books about Vietnam – the war and its history – with the broadcast of the new Ken Burns documentary. It's a significant topic, and there are many, many books reflecting various points of view. The list here is a starting point, including titles by some who lived through the experience.
The Best and the Brightest – David Halberstam
An account of American power and politics in the 1950s and 1960s highlights the political and military figures who shaped domestic and foreign policy and who orchestrated America's involvement in Vietnam.
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam – Neil Sheehan
Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, but by the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. A journalist tells the story of John Vann … and of the tragedy which destroyed the country and squandered so much of America's young manhood and resources.
Chickenhawk – Robert Mason
A former Army helicopter pilot describes his experiences during a year's tour in Vietnam, offering an extraordinary portrait of the terror, banality, stupidity, and waste of war.
Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam – H.R. McMaster
Outlines the policies and decisions that embroiled the U.S. in the war in Southeast Asia.
Father, Soldier, Son: A Memoir of a Platoon Leader in Vietnam – Nathaniel Tripp
A Vietnam platoon leader describes his challenges with taking care of and being a role model to his men as a son from a fatherless family, in a memoir that considers the realities of war and dysfunctional families.
Matterhorn – Karl Marlantes
Lieutenant Waino Mellas and his fellow Marines venture into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and fight their way into manhood, confronting external obstacles as well as racial tension, competing ambitions, and underhanded officers.
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
This novel is a study of New World hope and innocence set in an Old World of violence. The scene is Saigon in the violent years when the French were desperately trying to hold their footing in the Far East. The principal characters are a skeptical British journalist, his attractive Vietnamese mistress, and an eager young American sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission.
The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
Follows a Viet Cong agent as he spies on a South Vietnamese army general and his compatriots as they start a new life on 1975 Los Angeles.
The Things They Carried – Tim O'Brien
Heroic young men carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness.
Tree of Smoke – Denis Johnson
The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a novel of America during the Vietnam War.
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On this first day of fall, let's float back a few years for a look at what was happening in 1961. Idahoans might especially remember the explosion of the atomic reactor at what is now INL in January of that year, but can you also remember:
One Hundred and One Dalmations was released, launching one of Disney's most memorable supervillains, Creulla De Vil.
Construction of the Berlin Wall was begun – destruction of the Wall won't occur for another 29 years.
Roger Maris hit his 61st homer of the year, breaking the 34-year record of Babe Ruth.
And what were we reading the week of September 24? One of these books from the New York Times Best Seller list, we're sure:
1. The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3. Mila 18 by Leon Uris
4. The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins
5. The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
6. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
7. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
8. Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers
9. Rembrandt by Gladys Schmitt
10. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
11. Mothers and Daughters by Evan Hunter
12. A Shooting Star by Wallace Stegner
13. The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
14. A Man in a Mirror by Richard Llewellyn
15. The Off-Islanders by Nathaniel Benchley
16. A Journey to Matecumbe by Robert Lewis Taylor
1. The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White
2. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
3. A Nation of Sheep by William J. Lederer
4. Inside Europe Today by John Gunther
5. The New English Bible; New Testament (Oxford University Press/Cambridge University Press)
6. Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
7. Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin by George F. Kennan
8. The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas
9. The Sheppard Murder Case by Paul Holmes
10. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
11. Kidnap by George Waller
12. Life with Women and How to Survive It by Joseph H. Peck
13. These Ruins Are Inhabited by Muriel Beadle
14. Citizen Hearst by W.A. Swanberg
15. The Age of Reason Begins by Will and Ariel Durant
16. The Road Past Mandalay by John Masters
Brew and a Book