This modern classic and New York Times best seller, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has been called the greatest war book ever written. Walking the hallucinatory line between reality and fiction, author Tim O'Brien captures the complex dynamics of the Vietnam War.They carried M-16 rifles, M-60 machine guns, and M-79 grenade launchers. They carried plastic explosives, hand grenades, flak jackets, and landmines. But they also carried letters from home, illustrated Bibles, and pictures of their loved ones. Some of them carried extra food or comic books or drugs. Every man carried what he needed to survive, and those who did carried their shattering stories away from the jungle and back to a nation that would never understand.
Hailed by The New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling", The Things They Carried is a landmark in war fiction and a breathtaking example of the power of the written word.
