Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Northern Lights | 1975 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 2 | Going After Cacciato | 1978 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 3 | The Nuclear Age | 1985 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 4 | The Things They Carried | 1990 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 5 | In the Lake of the Woods | 1994 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 6 | Tomcat in Love | 1998 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 7 | July, July | 2002 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
| 8 | America Fantastica | 2023 | Tim O’Brien | Buy |
Tim O’Brien’s standalone novels span nearly five decades of American fiction. Most draw on his experience as a soldier in Vietnam, though he has also written about Cold War anxiety, small-town Minnesota, and contemporary American life.
His early novels Northern Lights (1975) and Going After Cacciato (1978) established him as a major voice in war literature. The Things They Carried (1990) became his most celebrated book and is now considered a classic. In the Lake of the Woods (1994) is a psychological mystery about a politician whose wife vanishes, and it won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize. After July, July (2002), O’Brien went quiet for over twenty years before publishing America Fantastica in 2023.