Tim O’Brien Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Northern Lights (1975)
  2. Going After Cacciato (1978)
  3. The Nuclear Age (1985)
  4. The Things They Carried (1990)
  5. In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
  6. Tomcat in Love (1998)
  7. July, July (2002)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973)
  2. The Things They Carried – Levels of Understanding (2012)
  3. Dick Kinzel (2015)
  4. Inner Story (2015)
  5. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Baseball Oddities & Trivia – Ball Two! (2016)
  6. Dad’s Maybe Book (2019)
  7. Tim O’Brien’s Roadside Pics & Picks (2020)
  8. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Amuseme*nt Park Oddities & Trivia (2020)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories (1991)
  2. The Putt at the End of the World (2000)
  3. Selected Shorts: Wartime Lives (2007)
  4. On War: The Best Military Histories (2013)

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Tim O’Brien Books Overview

Northern Lights

Originally published in 1975, Tim O’Brien’s debut novel demonstrates the emotional complexity and enthralling narrative tension that later earned him the National Book Award. At its core is the relationship between two brothers: one who went to Vietnam and one who stayed at home. As the two brothers struggle against an unexpected blizzard in Minnesota’s remote north woods, what they discover about themselves and each other will change both of them for ever.

Going After Cacciato

‘To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby Dick a novel about whales.’So wrote The New York Times of Tim O’Brien’s now classic novel of Vietnam. Winner of the 1979 National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar blend of horror and hallucinatory comedy that marked this strangest of wars. Reality and fantasy merge in this fictional account of one private’s sudden decision to lay down his rifle and begin a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. Will Cacciato make it all the way? Or will he be yet another casualty of a conflict that seems to have no end? In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it’s about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Nuclear Age

The Nuclear Age‘ is about one man’s slightly insane attempt to come to terms with a dilemma that confronts us all a little thing called The Bomb. The year is 1995, and William Cowling has finally found the courage to meet his fears head on. Cowling’s courage takes the form of a hole that he begins digging in his backyard in an effort to ‘bury’ all thoughts of the apocalypse. Cowling’s wife, however, is ready to leave him; his daughter has taken to calling him ‘nutto’; and Cowling’s own checkered past seems to be rising out of the crater taking shape on his lawn, besieging him with flashbacks and memories of a life that’s had more than its share of turmoil. Brilliantly interweaving his masterful storytelling powers with dark, surreal humor and empathy for characters caught in circumstances beyond their control, Tim O’Brien brings us his most entertaining novel to date. At once wildly comic and sneakily profound, ‘The Nuclear Age‘ is also utterly unforgettable.

In the Lake of the Woods

First published to critical acclaim by Houghton Mifflin, Tim O Brien’s celebrated classic In the Lake of the Woods now returns to the house in a gorgeous new Mariner paperback edition. This riveting novel of love and mystery from the author of The Things They Carried examines the lasting impact of the twentieth century s legacy of violence and warfare, both at home and abroad. When long hidden secrets about the atrocities he committed in Vietnam come to light, a candidate for the U.S. Senate retreats with his wife to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota. Within days of their arrival, his wife mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness.

Tomcat in Love

A wildly funny, brilliantly inventive novel about a man torn between two obsessions: the desperate need to win back his former wife and a craving to test his erotic charms on every woman he meets. He is 6’6′ tall, a cross between Ichabod Crane and Abe Lincoln. He is a professor of linguistics, bewitched by language, deluded about his ability to win the hearts of women with his erudition and physical appeal. He is Thomas H. Chippering, a.k.a. Tomcat, a masterly addition to the pantheon of unforgettable characters in American fiction. And in his private dictionary of love, three entries stand out. Tampa. Just the word makes Tom Chippering’s blood curdle. That’s where his ex wife, the faithless Lorna Sue, now lives with a suntanned tycoon whose name Chippering refuses to utter. Revenge. If Chippering can’t get Lorna Sue back, at least he can wreak havoc with her new marriage. How about some strategically placed lingerie in the tycoon’s ‘ostentatiously upscale Mercedes’? He also has plans for Lorna Sue’s brother, Herbie, with whom she has always had an unnaturally close relationship. Love. His ex wife may have disapproved, but is Chippering’s fondness for women especially the nubile coeds who attend his clas*ses really so wrong? And now love finds a new form: Mrs. Robert Kooshof, the attractive, demanding, and, of course, already married woman who may at last satisfy Chippering’s longing for intimacy. Tim O’Brien acclaimed for his fiction about the Vietnam War has now taken on the battle between the sexes with astonishing results. By turns hilarious, outrageous, romantic, and deeply moving, Tomcat in Love gives us a blundering, modern day Don Juan who embodies the desires and bewilderments of men everywhere.

July, July

Tim O’Brien is widely acclaimed as our finest chronicler of the Vietnam War and its afermath. In his ambitious, compassionate, and terrifically compelling new novel, this American master returns to his signature themes passion, memory, and yearning in a brilliant ensemble piece. July, July tells the heart rending and often hilarious story of a group of men and women who came into adulthood at a moment when American ideals and innocence began to fade. Their lives will ring familiar to anyone who has dreamed big dreams, suffered disappointment, and still struggled toward a happy ending. At the thirtieth reunion of Minnesota’s Darton Hall College class of 1969, ten old friends join their classmates for a July weekend of dancing, drinking, flirting, reminiscing, regretting. The three decades since their graduation have seen marriage and divorce, children and careers, hopes deferred and abandoned. Two best friends toast their ex husbands with vodka and set out for a good time. A damaged war veteran opens his soul to a Republican trophy wife recovering from a radical mastectomy. An overweight mop manufacturer with a large yet failing heart reignites his passion for a hyperkinetic housewife. And whispering in the background is the elusive Johnny Ever, part cynical angel, part conscience, the cosmic soul of ages past and of ages future. Winner of the National Book Award for his classic novel Going After Cacciato, Tim O’Brien once again strikes at the emotional nerve center of our lives. With humor and a sense of wistful hope, July, July speaks directly to our unique American character, and to our unique resilience.

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home

Perhaps the best book 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 walking the minefields of My Lai, fighting the heat and the snipers in an alien land, crawling into the ghostly tunnels as he explores the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war no one believes in.

The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories

This is a collection of non traditional ghost stories, mostly written since the 1990s, by such authors as Fay Weldon, Nadine Gordimer, and Paul Bowles.

The Putt at the End of the World

‘ Sex. Money. International terrorism. And, of course, the ultimate question: Can a compact backswing save the world? Now, in the tradition of Naked Came the Stranger and Naked Came the Manatee, a clubhouseful of acclaimed authors pass the baton or the six iron to create an ensemble tour de force of suspense, romance, and hilarity on the links. Golf is not a team sport. But who says fiction can’t be? Get ready. The gallery is hushed and the approach shot nears. The birdie has landed…
The Putt at the End of the World Fore? No, nine! That’s right. Nine literary grand masters each contribute a chapter and together bring you a full round robin of characters, not to mention a blistering drive of a story line that beats par with every page. Alfonzo Zamora is the venerable Mexican Senior player who’s just discovered he’s going blind. Billy Sprague is the country club pro with a swing as elegant as an eagle in flight except when money’s on the line. Rita Shaughnessy is the hard drinking, hard loving, hard luck golfer on the women’s pro tour. All three receive an invitation from multibillionaire Phillip Bates, founder of Macrodyne Software. To inaugurate his dazzling new course in Scotland, Bates is spending millions to host a tournament starring the superpro trio. The gala will welcome world leaders in the name of global peace and the universal language of golf. Launching Bates’s new, revolutionary computer operating system, the weekend volley will also attract a long scorecard of wild and unanticipated guests, including the world’s most elusive environmental terrorist, a Spanish caddie named Humpy who inspires bogeys, a caddish pro who can’t pass the Rorschach test, a sexy male female counterterrorist team who keep driving into traps of their own making, a certain naked golfer making a bid for his hole in one, and enough plastique to end the world as we know it…
. Will things get rough in the rough? Will the green run red? Where is the mysterious nineteenth hole? And in an apocalyptic final play that will determine the fate of the world, ecoterrorists will converge on the course for an explosive putt to end all putts. The ‘Good Walk’ has never been more fun!’

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