The bestselling author of The Things They Carried and If I Die in a Combat Zone shares wisdom from a life in letters, lessons learned in wartime, and the challenges, humour and rewards of raising two sons.When Tim O’Brien became an older father, he resolved to give his young sons what he wished his own father had given to him – a few scraps of paper signed ‘Love, Dad’. Maybe a word of advice. Maybe a sentence or two about some long-ago Christmas Eve. Maybe some scattered glimpses of their...
Hailed as one of the finest books to emerge from the Vietnam War, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a fascinating insight into the lives of the soldiers caught in the conflict.First published in 1973, this intensely personal novel about one foot soldier’s tour of duty in Vietnam established Tim O’Brien’s reputation as the outstanding chronicler of the Vietnam experience for a generation of Americans.From basic training to the front line and back again, he takes the reader on an unforgettable journey...
A remarkable novel from the National Book Award-winning author of ‘Going After Cacciato’ and ‘The Things They Carried’, which combines the power of the finest Vietnam fiction with the tension of a many-layered mystery.In a remote lakeside cabin deep in the Minnesota forests, Kathy Wade is comforting her husband John, an ambitious politician, after a devastating electoral defeat.Then one night she vanishes, and gradually the search for Kathy becomes a voyage into the darkest corners of John...
The acclaimed novel from the award-winning author of ‘If I Die in a Combat Zone’, ‘Going After Cacciato’ and ‘In the Lake of the Woods’.The action in ‘Northern Lights’ takes place not in Vietnam but back in the USA, as Tim O’Brien explores the after-effects of that war – on those who served, and those they left behind.Set in the frozen wilderness of north Minnesota, it concerns two brothers, one who served in Vietnam, and has returned tough, cynical and world-weary; and the other who stayed at...
The million-copy bestseller, which is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.‘The Things They Carried’ is, on its surface, a sequence of award-winning stories about the madness of the Vietnam War; at the same time it has the cumulative power and unity of a novel, with recurring characters and interwoven strands of plot and theme.But while Vietnam is central to ‘The Things They Carried’, it is not simply a book about war. It is also a...
