Books & Films About Vietnam

We recommend watching a film or two before you travel to set the scene, and taking a book to read whilst you travel, to enhance your understanding and enjoyment of Vietnam.

Here is a list of books, films and TV programmes which we have found both informative and entertaining.

Books
• Ten Years After: Vietnam Today by Tim Page
• Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden by Tim Page (memoir)
• Vietnam Inc by Philip Jones Griffiths
• Shadows and Wind by Robert Templer
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene (novel)
• Vietnam: A Traveller's Literary Companion ed. by John Balaban & Nguyen Qui Doc
• Hitchhiking Vietnam by Karin Muller (memoir)
• The sorrow of War: A Novel by Bao Ninh (novel)
• Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow
• Unquiet Vietnam: A Journey to the Vanishing World of Indochina by Kenneth Murphy
• The Beauty of the Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb (novel)
• ‘Catfish & Mandala': A Vietnamese Odyssey by Andrew X Pham (memoir)
• Wandering Through Vietnamese Culture by Huu Ngoc
• Vietnam: Rising Dragon by Bill Hayton
• Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind & Spirit ed. by Van Huy Nguyen
• Vietnam Today: A Guide to a Nation at a Crossroads by Mark Ashwill and Thai Ngoc Diep
• River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam & Cambodia by Jon Swain
• Vietnam Now, A Reporter Returns by David Lamb
• A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam by Norman Lewis

Films
• Apocalypse Now (Film, 1979)
• The Deer Hunter (Film, 1978)
• Indochine (Film, 1978)
• Heaven & Earth (Film, 1993)
• The Scent of Green Papaya (Vietnamese Film, 1993)
• Cyclo (Vietnamese Film, 1995)
• The Quiet American (Film, 2002)
• The Owl and the Sparrow (Film, 2004)
• The Buffalo Boy (Vietnamese Film, 2004)
• Journey from the Fall (Vietnamese Film, 2007)
• Oh Saigon (Vietnamese Film, 2007)

TV
• Top Gear Vietnam Special (BBC, 2008)
• The Coffee Trail with Simon Reeve (BBC Documentary, 2014)