Recommended books

Guidebooks

• Lonely Planet: the classical independent traveler guidebook with the best maps. I used the previous editions with satisfaction. They have also cities, language, cycling, and even food guidebooks too.
• Rough guide: the information seems to be very similar to the previous one, with maybe better cultural/historical information.
• Footprint: again pretty similar information, with the advantage that almost no other tourist will carry the same book as you.

History & litterature

• A Story of Vietnam: a comprehensive history of Vietnam, dealing with all periods and topics, written by a US history professor of Vietnamse ancestry.
• Beyond Illusions: the first full-length novel of Duong Thu Huong, the first Vietnamese novelist to be translated into English. It is possibly the one which evokes the best disillusions - romantic and political - suffered in the climate of communist post-war Vietnam. That disillution reflects the trajectory of the author, herself a former heroic front line soldier and communist party member, before becoming a dissident who has been jailed and prohibited to publish in her own country.

Photography books

• Passage to Vietnam: compiled from the work of seventy photographers, this 1994 book was the first to give a good portrait of Vietnam, and may still be the best photographic survey of the country. The companion CD ROM was also a pioneering production in its time, for its superb use of the medium.
• Pain and Grace : A Journey Through Vietnam: the work of a single photojournalist, Jim Gensheimer, this book captures in deeply emotional images the complexity of modern Vietnam.
• Enduring Spirit of Vietnam: living in Vietnam for ten years, Peter Steinhauser photographed the Mekong Delta, canals of Saigon, Ethnic minorities, and streetscapes of Hanoi in B&W using a large format camera. Long exposures, narrow depth of field, tonality and detail contribute to a very personal vision. A beautiful and quiet book.