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.

The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden. Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents. Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world firsthand.

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

Viet Nam changed all of us. Some for the good, some for the bad. I would like to think that I changed for the good. Love and war, the heartbreaks and reality. Everyone remembers their first true love. Does that burning ember ever completely go out? Do you ever wonder where life has taken them? This book is about two people who were deeply in love in the early 60's, when times were innocent and how war and circumstances changed the directions their lives took. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and maybe you'll see some of yourself in their story.

Novel excerpts include: Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers, David Halberstam's One Very Hot Day, and Jeff Danziger's Lieutenant Kitt. Short stories include Asa Baber's "The Ambush," Tobias Wolff's "Wingfield," and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." Drama excerpts include David Rabe's Streamers and Lanford Wilson's The 5th of July. Poets include: Denise Levertov, Jan Barry, E. D. Ehrhart, Basil T. Paquet, Stephen Sossaman, Bryan Alec Floyd, Bruce Weigl, and Trang Thi Nga.

Doctor Jimmy Capri was anxious. Doctor Maureen "Mo" Lally had coerced him into presenting their paper at a military medical meeting in Hanoi. He feared that returning to Vietnam would unmask the post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD that he suffered from his first tour at First Marines First Medical Battalion in Da Nang and that he had managed to submerge for over thirty-five years. The memories that had lain dormant did surface, including being shot and the details of his love affair with Mai Nguyen, a nurse at WHO Children"s Hospital. What he didn't anticipate from his short stay in Vietnam, was a new love.

13 Moons over Vietnam—1st Moon: Innocence Why another memoir on Vietnam? There are already hundreds of publications on the Vietnam War. 13 Moons over Vietnam captures a unique perspective of a soldier’s experience of war, juxtaposing more than 150 stories between the lines of 280 uncensored letters to his wife, who was pregnant with their first child. These stories, describing actual experiences, are conveyed with raw emotions of anxiety and fear, refuting the nonchalant tone of his correspondence home. The effect is a stark and unsettling contrast between what is written home and what actually happens. 13 Moons over Vietnam is organized as a series segmented by lunar cycles that symbolize the author’s struggles with identity and faith as he confronts progressive incidents of social and emotional violence. Begin with 1st Moon: Innocence, and witness a metamorphosis that spirals through a moral and spiritual minefield.