How do families remain close when turbulent forces threaten to tear them apart? In this groundbreaking book based on more than a decade of research set in Vietnam, Merav Shohet explores what happens across generations to families that survive imperialism, war, and massive political and economic upheaval. Placing personal sacrifice at the center of her story, Shohet recounts vivid experiences of conflict, love, and loss. In doing so, her work challenges the idea that sacrifice is merely a blood-filled religious ritual or patriotic act. Today, domestic sacrifices—made largely by women—precariously knot family members together by silencing suffering and naturalizing cross-cutting gender, age, class, and political hierarchies. In rethinking ordinary ethics, this intimate ethnography reveals how quotidian acts of sacrifice help family members forge a sense of continuity in the face of trauma and decades of dramatic change.

From endangered langurs on Cat Ba Island to sidecar journeys in the Central Highlands, discover the secrets of savvy expatriates, seasoned travelers, and inspired locals. With its unique insights into dining, shopping, sightseeing, and culture, this personal collection of essays is a one-of-a-kind guide for the passionate traveler.

How does the literature of a society that has endured decades of war reflect the echoes of that violence to bodies and spirits while depicting the ordinary lives of men and women who are searching, as all people do, for meaning, for happiness, for normalcy, for love? Love After War presents the widest range to date of contemporary writers in Vietnam, men and women who have become part of that country's established canon, as well as young and up-coming writers who have come of age in modern Vietnam. Their stories, published in the most widely read literary journals, magazines and newspapers in Vietnam, and many translated here for the first time, reveal the relationships and concerns of everyday life, and the erosion and endurance of life in that country. Contributors to the anthology include Vu Boa, Nguyen Minh Chau, Ngo Thi Kim Cuc, Nguyen Phan Hach, Ma Van Khang, Nguyen Khai, Le Minh Khue, Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, Bao Ninh, Doan Le, Ho Anh Thai, Nguyen Huy Thiep, Nguyen Manh Tuan and others.

Sylvain Toussaint and Cecilia "Cilia" Nguyen have been best friends for years. Growing up in the mostly white West Side of Brockton, Massachusetts, their respective clans were the only recent immigrant families on the block. Haitian-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans, living peacefully side by side. At least until their lives took drastically different turns. After high school Cecilia went to Massasoit Community College, and Sylvain went to the University of Virginia. Years later they reunite in Brockton, Massachusetts, and sparks fly between them. Can best friends find true love with each other ? Or are they carelessly messing up a lifelong friendship ?

From Giller Prize winner, internationally acclaimed, and bestselling author Vincent Lam comes a superbly crafted, highly suspenseful, and deeply affecting novel set against the turmoil of the Vietnam War. Percival Chen is the headmaster of the most respected English school in Saigon. He is also a bon vivant, a compulsive gambler and an incorrigible womanizer. He is well accustomed to bribing a forever-changing list of government officials in order to maintain the elite status of the Chen Academy. He is fiercely proud of his Chinese heritage, and quick to spot the business opportunities rife in a divided country. He devotedly ignores all news of the fighting that swirls around him, choosing instead to read the faces of his opponents at high-stakes mahjong tables. But when his only son gets in trouble with the Vietnamese authorities, Percival faces the limits of his connections and wealth and is forced to send him away. In the loneliness that follows, Percival finds solace in Jacqueline, a beautiful woman of mixed French and Vietnamese heritage, and Laing Jai, a son born to them on the eve of the Tet offensive. Percival's new-found happiness is precarious, and as the complexities of war encroach further and further into his world, he must confront the tragedy of all he has refused to see. Blessed with intriguingly flawed characters moving through a richly drawn historical and physical landscape, The Headmaster's Wager is a riveting story of love, betrayal and sacrifice.

Bob Hope, stalwart and determined entertainer of U.S. troops, on the five women he could take on each of his Vietnam trips. Love that Bob!

A stunningly beautiful love letter to Vietnam with more than 100 recipes, from best-selling author and Cooking Channel host Luke Nguyen In My Vietnam, chef, television star, and best-selling author Luke Nguyen returns home to discover the best of regional Vietnamese cooking. Starting in the north and ending in the south, Luke visits family and friends in all the country’s diverse regions, is invited into the homes of local Vietnamese families, and meets food experts and local cooks to learn more about one of the richest, most diverse cuisines in the world. Savor more than 100 regional and family recipes—from Tamarind Broth with Beef and Water Spinach to Wok-tossed Crab in Sate Sauce—and enjoy vibrant, stunning full-color photographs bursting with color and textures and capturing the beauty of Vietnam, her people, and their deep connection to food.

As American troops continue their steady exodus on the last day of their ground war in Vietnam, Lieutenant Joe Tallon is shot down by an enemy missile. Forced to eject at a dangerously low altitude from their OV-1 Mohawk, Joe and his tactical observer, Specialist-5 Daniel Richards, land in the flaming wreckage. Lieutenant Tallon survives but Specialist Richards does not. Stateside, Lieutenant Tallon begins to heal and proceed with his life-but the loss of his tactical observer is never far from his mind. Forty years later, Joe embarks on a quest to bring recognition to the sacrifice of Daniel Richards and secure a Purple Heart for his family. Painstakingly recreated from wartime letters and remembrances and contextualized by contemporary news accounts, 100 Days in Vietnam is a collaboration between Joe and his son Matt-also an Army veteran. Here we experience the war through the emotions of the man who survived it: the drudgery and monotony of airfield life, the heartache of a newlywed missing his wife, the terror of combat missions, the agony of injury and rehabilitation, and the bittersweet relief from the completion of his final mission to bring recognition to his fallen comrade.

Grade level: 1, 2, k, p, e, t.