Vietnam: A History (1983) by Stanley Karnow. This extensive and thorough account remains the standard reference and is surprisingly engaging for a scholarly work.

Dispatches (1977) by Michael Herr stands as a cornerstone in the genre of journalistic and personal narratives about Vietnam. Uncompromising and realistic, it was among the first books to offer such a perspective.

A Rumor of War (1977) by Philip Caputo is frequently mentioned alongside Herr's Dispatches. This somber narrative focuses on how individual soldiers operated within their units during the war.

In Country (1985) by Bobbie Ann Mason is a novel exploring the impact of the Vietnam War on those who stayed behind at home.

Shallow Graves: Two Women and Vietnam (1986) by Wendy Larsen Wilder and Tran Thi Nga is a collection of poems written by the wife of an American journalist and a former employee of a magazine's Saigon office. Through alternating sections, the book presents a vivid and emotional portrayal of the war.

Robert Olen Butler's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (1992), examines the Vietnam War and its aftermath through a variety of narrative perspectives.

Going After Cacciato (1978) is Tim O'Brien's award-winning novel about an infantryman who decides to walk from Vietnam to Paris for the peace talks.