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Tim O'Brien

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Tim O'Brien


Born
in Austin, Minnesota, The United States
October 01, 1946

Genre
Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction


Tim O'Brien is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his work later in life often explores the postwar lives of its veterans.
O'Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (1990), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by his wartime experiences. In 2010, The New York Times described it as "a classic of contemporary war fiction." O'Brien wrote the war novel, Going After Cacciato (1978), which was awarded the National Book Award.
O'Brien taught creative writing, holding the endowed chair at the MFA program of Texas State University–San Marcos every other academic year from 2003 to 2012. ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 4.08 · 414,379 ratings · 27,351 reviews · 136 distinct works • Similar authors
The Things They Carried
4.14 avg rating — 343,330 ratings — published 1990 — 139 editions
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In the Lake of the Woods
3.76 avg rating — 24,213 ratings — published 1994 — 64 editions
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Going After Cacciato
3.91 avg rating — 14,595 ratings — published 1978
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If I Die in a Combat Zone, ...
3.96 avg rating — 11,834 ratings — published 1973 — 70 editions
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America Fantastica
3.45 avg rating — 4,888 ratings — published 2023 — 2 editions
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July, July
3.49 avg rating — 4,061 ratings — published 2002 — 36 editions
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Tomcat in Love
3.44 avg rating — 3,472 ratings — published 1998 — 38 editions
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Northern Lights
3.32 avg rating — 1,303 ratings — published 1975 — 22 editions
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The Nuclear Age
3.48 avg rating — 1,187 ratings — published 1985 — 31 editions
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Dad's Maybe Book
3.93 avg rating — 859 ratings — published 2019 — 14 editions
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More books by Tim O'Brien…

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Quotes by Tim O'Brien  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien
tags: fiction, on-fiction, stories, truth, writing
2420 likes
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“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
981 likes
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“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
tags: lies, truth, war
777 likes
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Polls

October 2016 New School Group Read

1952, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 581 pages
 
  34 votes, 22.1%

 
  32 votes, 20.8%

1996, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, 432 pages
 
  16 votes, 10.4%

1984, Neuromancer by William Gibson, 271 pages
 
  14 votes, 9.1%

1924, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, 706 pages
 
  12 votes, 7.8%

1939, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, 231 pages
 
  12 votes, 7.8%

1997, American Pastoral by Philip Roth, 432 pages
 
  10 votes, 6.5%

1956, The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, 103 pages
 
  9 votes, 5.8%

1990, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, 246 pages
 
  8 votes, 5.2%

1950, A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, 359 pages
 
  5 votes, 3.2%

1978, Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec, 581 pages
 
  2 votes, 1.3%

154 total votes
More...

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