Book picks similar to
Good Morning, Vietnam by Frederic P. Miller
film
war
war-guerrilla-war-minor-war
watched-not-read
The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War
Doug Stanton - 2017
Alongside other young American soldiers in an Army reconnaissance platoon (Echo Company, 1/501) of the 101st Airborne Division, Stanley Parker, the nineteen-year-old son of a Texan ironworker, was suddenly thrust into savage combat, having been in-country only a few weeks. As Stan and his platoon-mates, many of whom had enlisted in the Army, eager to become paratroopers, moved from hot zone to hot zone, the extreme physical and mental stresses of Echo Company’s day-to-day existence, involving ambushes and attacks, grueling machine-gun battles, and impossibly dangerous rescues of wounded comrades, pushed them all to their limits and forged them into a lifelong brotherhood. The war became their fight for survival. When they came home, some encountered a bitterly divided country that didn’t understand what they had survived. Returning to the small farms, beach towns, and big cities where they grew up, many of the men in the platoon fell silent, knowing that few of their countrymen wanted to hear the stories they lived to tell—until now. Based on interviews, personal letters, and Army after-action reports, The Odyssey of Echo Company recounts the searing tale of wartime service and homecoming of ordinary young American men in an extraordinary time and confirms Doug Stanton’s prominence as an unparalleled storyteller of our age.
Gore Vidal: A Biography
Fred Kaplan - 1999
50 illustrations throughout.
Reluctant Warrior
Michael Hodgins - 1997
It's almost something out of a Clancy novel, yet it's true. The best thing I can say about it is I didn't want it to end."--Col. David Hackworth, New York Times bestselling author of About FaceBy the spring of 1970, American troops were ordered to pull out of Vietnam. The Marines of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel "Wild Bill" Drumright, were assigned to cover the withdrawal of 1st Marine Division. The Marines of 1st RECON Bn operated in teams of six or seven men. Heavily armed, the teams fought a multitude of bitter engagements with a numerically superior and increasingly aggressive enemy.Michael C. Hodgins served in Company C, 1st RECON Bn (Rein), as a platoon leader. In powerful, graphic prose, he chronicles his experience as a patrol leader in myriad combat situations--from hasty ambush to emergency extraction to prisoner snatch to combined-arms ambush. . . ."THIS MEMOIR IS GRIPPING."--American WayFrom the Paperback edition.
The Company You Keep
Neil Gordon - 2003
Seventeen-year-old Isabel Montgomery starts to receive emails from her father, a man who had abandoned her in a hotel room ten years ago when his past finally caught up with him. Why has he contacted her now? Because he needs her help and is finally ready to reveal the truth. Over the course of the next month, further emails arrive telling her more about her family's past. Isabel discovers that her father adopted a false identity in the hope of avoiding murder charges for a robbery gone wrong in 1974. By 1996, with a marriage falling apart around him, he is one last Vietnam-era fugitives still wanted by the law. When he is finally tracked down by a young newspaper reporter in search of a story he must abandon years of safe underground life in an attempt to exonerate himself. Set against the rise and fall of the radical anti-war group the Weather Underground, The Company You Keep is a sweeping American saga about sacrifice, the righteousness of youth, and the tension between political ideals and family loyalties.
SS Panzer SS Inferno (Eyewitness panzer crews) Book 2: Normandy to Berlin
Sprech Media - 2015
. . within seconds, flaming gasoline was pouring out, burning white and orange . . .” Told by the men who fought in the tanks, with all the searing aggression and violence that they experienced . . . the shocking first hand stories of the SS panzer troops themselves. These are crews of the Panzer IV, the Stug, the Panther, Jagdtiger, Tiger and King Tiger . . . hear the authentic voices of the gunners, commanders and drivers who fought in some of the deadliest battles in human history. In 1962, a German researcher conducted a series of interviews with former members of the Waffen SS Panzer troops who had fought in World War 2. He intended to probe their motivations and psychology, but found them unwilling to discuss these matters in depth. The SS veterans were willing, however, to describe their combat experiences, and gave astonishing accounts of tank battles in Operation Barbarossa, Normandy, Italy, the Russian Front, the massive conflict at Kursk, the Ardennes and during the final desperate battles against the Soviets within the Reich and for Berlin itself. These were men whose memories of the battles were still vivid, and were ready to relate the physical details of combat – the explosive sights, sounds, and sensations of tank fighting, the weapons and tactics that they used, their triumphs and humiliations. Told in ice-cold, clinical detail, with phenomenal drama and sense of crisis, these first-hand accounts stand out today as one of the most remarkable testimonies to the experience of tank warfare in WW2. They will fascinate anyone interested in tank combat, the Waffen SS and the use of armor from 1941 to 1945. This is Book 2 in the series, covering tank battles in: Normandy (Panther) The Ardennes (Jagdtiger) Prussia (Stug IV) Berlin (King Tiger and Wirbelwind) Book 1 in the series ('SS Panzer SS Pride - Barbarossa to Italy') covers battles in: Operation Barbarossa (Panzer IV) Onslaught in the East (Stug III) Kursk (Tiger I) Italy (Elefant and Panther) The full set of interviews from Books 1 and 2 is available in the book 'SS Panzer SS Voices.' This edition also has a preview of the latest publication of eyewitness panzer battles from Sprech Media, 'Hitler's Children - Spitting Fire.'
Islands in the Stream
Ernest Hemingway - 1970
Rich with the uncanny sense of life and action characteristic of his writing — from his earliest stories (In Our Time) to his last novella (The Old Man and the Sea) — this compelling novel contains both the warmth of recollection that inspired A Moveable Feast and a rare glimpse of Hemingway's rich and relaxed sense of humor, which enlivens scene after scene. Beginning in the 1930s, Islands in the Stream follows the fortunes of Thomas Hudson from his experiences as a painter on the Gulf Stream island of Bimini, where his loneliness is broken by the vacation visit of his three young sons, to his antisubmarine activities off the coast of Cuba during World War II. The greater part of the story takes place in a Havana bar, where a wildly diverse cast of characters — including an aging prostitute who stands out as one of Hemingway's most vivid creations — engages in incomparably rich dialogue. A brilliant portrait of the inner life of a complex and endlessly intriguing man, Islands in the Stream is Hemingway at his mature best.
The Gin Game
D.L. Coburn - 1977
Weller Martin is playing solitaire on the porch of a seedy nursing home. Enter Fonsia Dorsey, a prim, self righteous lady. They discover they both dislike the home and enjoy gin rummy so they begin to play and to reveal intimate details of their lives. Fonsia wins every time and their secrets become weapons used against one another. Weller longs for a victory to counter a lifetime of defeats but it doesn't happen. He leaves the stage a broken man and Fonsia realizes her self-righteous rigidity has led to an embittered, lonely old age. "A thoroughly entertaining lesson in the fine art of theatrical finesse. The closest thing the theatre offers to a duel at 10 paces."-The New York Times"Extremely intelligent..fine bittersweet comedy...Funny, sad, profane, eloquent, touching, beautiful."-WABC-TV"Perfect...A vibrant study on loneliness, disillusion, old age and death yet fiercely funny."-The Boston Globe
Machine Dreams
Jayne Anne Phillips - 1984
Here is a stunning chronicle that begins with the Depression and ends with the Vietnam War, revealed in the thoughts, dreams, and memories of each family member. Mitch struggles to earn a living as Jeans becomes the main breadwinner, working to complete college and raise the family. While the couple fight to keep their marriage intact, their daughter Danner and son Billy forge a sibling bond of uncommon strength. When Billy goes off to Vietnam, Danner becomes the sole bond linking her family, whose dissolution mirrors the fractured state of America in the 1960s. Deeply felt and vividly imagined, this lyrical novel is "among the wisest of a generation to grapple with a war that maimed us all" (The Village Voice), by a master of contemporary fiction.
Perfume River
Robert Olen Butler - 2016
Their marriage, forged in the fervor of anti-Vietnam-war protests, now bears the fractures of time, both personal and historical, with the couple trapped in an existence of morning coffee and solitary jogging and separate offices. For Robert and Darla, the cracks remain under the surface, whereas the divisions in Robert’s own family are more apparent: he has almost no relationship with his brother Jimmy, who became estranged from the family as the Vietnam War intensified. Robert and Jimmy’s father, a veteran of WWII, is coming to the end of his life, and aftershocks of war ripple across their lives once again, when Jimmy refuses to appear at his father’s bedside. And an unstable homeless man whom Robert at first takes to be a fellow Vietnam veteran turns out to have a deep impact not just on Robert, but on his entire family.
Cairnaerie
M.K.B. Graham - 2017
Geneva Snow commits the unforgivable Southern sin. No longer the apple of her father’s eye, she is a pariah, defying her society's most sacrosanct rule. To protect her—and hoping for a change of heart—her shattered yet steadfast father hides her at Cairnaerie, his mountain estate. But his iron-willed daughter is unrepentant. After years of solitude, an older and wiser Geneva is finally mellowing, and she is desperate to leave a legacy worthy of the father she loved and lost. To that end, she engages an unwitting young history professor for help to escape Cairnaerie long enough to attend the wedding of her granddaughter—a girl dangerously unaware of her lineage. But when a postman’s malevolence and a colleague’s revenge converge, Geneva's long-kept secret is exposed. For a second time, she faces a calamity of her own making. Only this time, there is no place to hide.
Fish in the Dark: A Play
Larry David - 2015
This sidesplitting play, a testimony to David’s great writing talent, is also his first time on Broadway—in fact, his first time acting on stage since eighth grade. In Fish in the Dark Larry David stars as Norman Drexel, a man in his fifties who is average in most respects except for his hyperactive libido. As Norman and his family try to navigate the death of a loved one, old acquaintances and unsettled arguments resurface with hilarious consequences.Fish in the Dark has its world premiere at the Cort Theatre on Broadway on March 5, 2015, starring Larry David.
D-Day
Peter H. Liddle - 2004
Harrowing and heroic, the events of D-Day were recorded in the personal writings of those who were there. Here, Francis Crosby has compiled a comprehensive collection of previously unpublished letters, diaries, photographs, and reminiscences that tell the story of D-Day as it has never been told before.With the use of new international archives, Crosby has culled vivid and detailed eye-witness accounts from each beach, as well as perspectives from land, sea, and air. This fascinating collection includes entries from American, British, and Canadian troops, the Merchant Navy and the Royal Air Force, and newly available German materials. Also included are contemporary and retrospective reactions of women "in the know" and those whom knew from "unofficial sources" of the immediate imminence of the assault.
The Serpent's Egg
J.J. Toner - 2016
But this is Germany, 1938. Their union is against Nazi laws, as Anna is part-Jewish. A Gestapo officer agrees to authorize the marriage, but only if Max infiltrates and betrays a Marxist resistance cell, the Red Orchestra. This is not an assignment that Max can refuse. If he succeeds, Anna will get the wedding she longs for, but many brave resistance fighters will die… What early reviewers are saying about the book: JJ Toner does a fabulous job of lacing fact and fiction together. I do not often give a five-star rating, but this story surprised me, educated me, and entertained me. There was never a dull moment. Well done. JJ Toner captures perfectly the sense of paranoia and fear that prevailed in Berlin during the Third Reich, especially in the years 1938 to 1945. The convoluted intermingling of different agencies, organizations and ministries, and over all the terror of the SS and its departments, is well set out. It was really a matter of who you knew, not what you knew, if you wanted to progress. The fact that the novel is based on the actual story of the Rote Kapelle only adds to the tension