The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien
From Bookmarc's, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
AbeBooks Seller Since January 11, 2000
From Bookmarc's, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
AbeBooks Seller Since January 11, 2000
About this Item
T1 - A 20th anniversary edition 2nd printing hardcover book SIGNED and inscribed by Tim O'Brien to previous owner on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling and chipping on the edges and corners, a few light soiled patches on some top edges, light discoloration and shelf wear. Book lightly cocked, some bumped corners, wrinkling on the spine edges, couple of small dog-eared pages on the top, tanning and light shelf wear. THIS IS AN AMERICAN CLASSIC. 8.5"x5.5", 233 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. The Things They Carried (1990) is a collection of linked short stories by American novelist Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War. His third book about the war, it is based upon his experiences as a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division. O'Brien generally refrains from political debate and discourse regarding the Vietnam War. He was dismayed that people in his home town seemed to have so little understanding of the war and its world. It was in part a response to what he considered ignorance that he wrote The Things They Carried. It was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1990. Many of the characters are semi-autobiographical, sharing similarities with figures from his memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. In The Things They Carried, O'Brien plays with the genre of metafiction; he writes using verisimilitude. His use of real place names and inclusion of himself as the protagonist blurs fiction and non-fiction. As part of this effect, O'Brien dedicates The Things They Carried to the fictional men of the "Alpha Company," giving it "the form of a war memoir," states O'Brien. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Seller Inventory # 2402ec76
Bibliographic Details
Title: The Things They Carried
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Massachusetts
Publication Date: 2010
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed by Author
Edition: 20th Anniversary Edition.
About this title
A classic, life-changing meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling, with more than two-million copies in print
Depicting the men of Alpha Company—Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three—the stories in The Things They Carried opened our eyes to the nature of war in a way we will never forget. It is taught everywhere, from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing, and in the decades since its publication it has never failed to challenge our perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, and courage, longing, and fear.
A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable. --Alix Wilber
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Store Description
Our information: Bookmarc's, Sole Proprietor, Marc Williams, 3302 Clarksville St., La Porte, TX 77571, 281-479-0596, bookmarcs@gmail.com
We are able to hold books for two weeks. Reciprocal dealer discounts are available. We accept payment by PayPal, American Express, Discovery, Visa, or MasterCard. Our return policy is 14 days upon notification. Please call us if you have any questions at 281-479-0596. You may also e-mail any questions to us at bookmarcs@gmail.com. Shipments to Texas addresses w...
More InformationNOTE: For International Orders (Any orders outside of the United States)
We regret that we are no longer able to cover the shipping costs for any international orders that are lost or damaged in transit. We are able to provide refunds for the book only.
Our shipping provider using United States Postal Service was recently acquired by Stamps.com which allows us to continue to purchase insurance on the book but not on the postage
Domestic Shipping
Default shipping is by Media Mail (about 5 to 14 business days) at $4.50 for the first book and $3 for each additional book. Priority mail (about 2 to 6 days to most locations) is available at $8.99 for the first book and $8.99 for each additional book.
Payment Methods
accepted by seller
PayPal