Reading for Vietnam
 

Always looking for new insight. I have read two great books but am looking for more:

Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham
and
Beyond Survival by Gerald Coffee

Two very different views of Vietnam.

Anyone else with suggestions?

Anthony Grey's SAIGON has admittedly limited literary value but does a magnificent job of providing insight into the culture. If you are looking for a readable story that will bring you from French colonial rule in the late nineteenth century through the end of the "American War," do consider it.

The source of this recommendation, happy to say, is not me but someone far more credible. My husband asked his Vietnamese colleague, a distinguished gentleman who was the son of a personal physician to Ho Chi Minh and who tells stories of a childhood partly spent hiding out with his father and Bac Ho, what an American might read to understand the Vietnamese culture. The colleague strongly recommended SAIGON, saying that Grey really understands Vietnam.

Sitting on our coffee table are THE SACRED WILLOW which other Americans have recommended, and the Duiker biography of Ho (HO CHI MINH: A LIFE) which is apparently the class of that field. I have not yet read either.

I'm especially fond of Norman Lewis's A Dragon Apparent. It was written several years back, but is still insightful.

Also, The Quiet American, Graham Greene.

There are zillions of books on the American War. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson is a new addition and very good.

Phil Noyce's 2002 film of "The Quiet American" is worth viewing. The final scene, incidentally, set on the Saigon riverfront, was filmed in Hoi An.

When we were in Hanoi almost every street kid was selling two books - Greene's "The Quiet American" and "Sorrow of War" by Bao Ninh, purportedly written by a Vietnamese soldier during the American War.

I never got to read Ninh's book because my wife, having no spare change, gave it to a beggar, but I was told that it's very moving.

I posted this on my Vietnam Blog last summer. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip. I wanted to grasp what living in Vietnam was like for the Vietnamese during the "American War" --as they call it. Well, little did I know the impact this book would have upon me. WOW..... I could hardly put it down. This book is an autobiography of a women who survived the terror of the Vietnam War many times over. Her life as a young child, secure, happy and loved unwinds in an unbelievable way. She is a survivor--and has the grit and determination to live through this terrible time. I learned a great deal about the Vietnamese reading this book.....their culture....the impact many, many years of war has had upon them. It gave me a great deal of insight into what war can do to a people and their country.

SHADOWS AND WIND by Robert Templer


Andrew Pham's new book, THE EAVES OF HEAVEN got a great review in the NY Times a couple of months ago but I have not read it yet.

The Indochina Chronicles Travels in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
author Phil Karber

Up Country by Nelson DeMille

Three Moons in Vietnam by Maria Coffey - atrue and moving story

Saigon - Anthony Grey - a real easy to read insight into the recent history of Vietnam

Just started reading "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain" - A series of short stories that provide insight into the Vietnamese culture. A pulitzer prize winner, too.

Just went back and reread this thread to get some recommendations for now approaching trip to Vietnam.

Just finished Andre Pham's "Eaves of Heaven." Really well written and evocative. Highly recommend. Now I'm going to check out some of these others.

So glad you pulled up this thread. Another vote for Catfish and Mandala. Am looking forward to reading his Eaves of Heaven.

I also recommend The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli. A very moving novel about a young American woman journalist reporting on the Vietnam/American war over a 10 year period, up close and personal.

SALT: A NOVEL (although this book was not among my favorites)

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Salt-Nove.../dp/0618304002

Vietnam: A Literalry Companion or whatever it's called has a nice variety of short pieces.

'sheeed