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

A Work of Fiction

The Things They Carried

In the Lake of the Woods

a novel

Going after Cacciato

America Fantastica

One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of interrelated short pieces which ultimately reads with the dramatic force and tension of a novel. Yet each one of the twenty-two short pieces is written with such care, emotional content, and prosaic precision that it could stand on its own. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves. With the creative verve of the greatest fiction and the intimacy of a searing autobiography, The Things They Carried is a testament to the men who risked their lives in America's most controversial war.It is also a mirror held up to the frailty of humanity. Ultimately The Things They Carried and its myriad protagonists call to order the courage, determination, and luck we all need to survive. In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato -- a novel about the Vietnam War -- won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Amusement Park Oddities & Trivia

"Our second volume of weird, wacky, and wonderfully true facts dedicated to America's national pastime!"--Back cover.

A Journey Through the Weird, Wacky, and Absolutely True World of Baseball

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Baseball Oddities & Trivia - Ball Two!

The Huge, The High, The Half-Buried

Tim O'Brien's Roadside Pics & Picks

Field Trip

Ploughshares Winter 1983 Guest-Edited by Raymond Carver

The Lives of the Dead

During his 39-year career, Dick Kinzel built the world's first 200, 300, and 400-foot tall roller coasters at Ohio's Cedar Point. The amusement park Hall of Famer was a thrill seeker and a risk taker all while being a fiscally responsible leader. He spent his life putting smiles on people's faces and fear in their eyes. This is his story.

Dick Kinzel: Roller Coaster King of Cedar Point Amusement Park

Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?

The Vietnam in Me

Mike Savage

Fun, contemporary and visually stunning, Naked Vinyl is guaranteed to act as a conversation piece, it lovingly brings together more than one hundred of the best album covers from that unique sub-genre of the music industry-the bachelor album. The collection focuses on the development of the "vinyl nude" from the adult-oriented eroticism of the fifties to the brash exhibitionism of the seventies. Listings of artists, musicians, producers, lyricists and photographers accompany the cover art to create a sexy, stylish and contemporary collection of beautiful, sometimes tawdry, vinyl nudes.

The genre of record cover art holds a visual interest all its own. It holds appeal for record collectors and music enthusiasts, design and photography enthusiasts, and anyone with an eye for color, style, or beauty. Naked Vinyl features classic album cover art that brings together music, art and eroticism, displaying their playful character shamelessly to the world.

Bachelor Album Cover Art

Naked Vinyl

Best-selling author Tim O'Brien shares wisdom from a life in letters, lessons learned in wartime, and the challenges, humor, and rewards of raising two sons. "We are all writing our maybe books full of maybe tomorrows, and each maybe tomorrow brings another maybe tomorrow, and then another, until the last line of the last page receives its period." In 2003, already an older father, National Book Award–winning novelist Tim O'Brien 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 rapidly aging father, a man they might never really know. For the next fifteen years, the author talked to his sons on paper, as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father who was no longer among the living. O'Brien traverses the great variety of human experience and emotion, moving from soccer games to warfare to risqué lullabies, from alcoholism to magic shows to history lessons to bittersweet bedtime stories, but always returning to a father's soul-saving love for his sons. The result is Dad's Maybe Book, a funny, tender, wise, and enduring literary achievement that will squeeze the reader's heart with joy and recognition. Tim O'Brien and the writing of Dad's Maybe Book are now the subject of the documentary film The War and Peace of Tim O'Brien available to watch at timobrienfilm.com

Tim O'Brien

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