Your trip to Vietnam will be greatly enhanced by some pre-trip reading.

The following is by no means a definitive list.

• No traveller in Vietnam should be without the Lonely Planet guide, Vietnam

General

• Robert Templer, Shadows and Wind. A view of Modern Vietnam

• Neil Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam

History

• Duong Van Mai Elliot, The Sacred Willow. Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family

The War and Ho Chi Minh

• William Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life

• William Duiker, Sacred War

• Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History

• Tom Mangold and John Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi

• Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie

Vietnam Since 1975

• William Duiker, Vietnam Since The Fall of Saigon

• Gabriel Kolko, Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace

• Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh

Fiction

• Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War

• Duong Thu Huong, Paradise of the Blind

• Graham Greene, The Quiet American