Choice 评论

Six years ago, the first edition (CH, Jul '82) contained 226 entries; this second edition, which includes materials through 1987, now contains 752. The methodology has been refined; the division into literary forms (novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and miscellaneous) are arranged in alphabetical order year by year. The earliest entries, one novel and two short stories, are from 1965. The bibliographic nets have been cast very wide: there are numerous original paperback publications. Some may find the bibliographic fact of a suprisingly large number of erotic novels, both straight and gay, with a Vietnam setting to be a double obscenity. The annotations are crisp, highly descriptive, and, except for the most meretricious, nonjudgmental. There still is no mention of the 1966 hit song, "The Ballad of the Green Berets." Entry 719 records an early comic book set in Vietnam. The compilers might well want to now consider such well-received and reasonably accurate graphic efforts as The 'Nam (Marvel Comics; Vol. I, no. 1, Dec., 1986- ) and Vietnam Journal (Apple Comics; No. 1, Nov., 1987- ). Six years ago, this was a pioneering bibliography; now it is the definitive bibliography covering imaginative works about the American involvement in Vietnam. It belongs in all research libraries, and is recommended for upper-division undergraduate collections also. -R. S. Bravard, Lock Haven University