Reddit mentions of Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

Your story reminded me of the book: Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

http://www.amazon.com/Catfish-Mandala-Two-Wheeled-Through-Landscape/dp/0312267177

If you don't know this book already, read it! It's really awesome. It's a free ticket to Vietnam until you get to go back :)

OP, if you are looking for a really incredible book by a korean-am author, i recommend nora okja keller's fox girl. it is INCREDIBLY dark but honest and gorgeous and terrifying. i loved and hated it when i read it for an asian american lit class and to this day almost 8 years later i can't stop thinking about it. (https://amzn.com/0142001961)


esme weijun wang - border of paradise (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26196482-the-border-of-paradise)
^^CANNOT recommend this enough. it is LIFE CHANGING. haunting beautiful devastating modern gothic, mixes language and culture like nothing i've read before.

celeste ng - everything i never told you (https://amzn.com/0143127551)

annie choi - happy birthday or whatever (https://amzn.com/0061132225)

andrew x. pham - catfish and mandala (https://amzn.com/0312267177)

lisa see - snow flower and the secret fan (https://amzn.com/0812980352)

Do you know if your brother has read Catfish and Mandala? It's about the author's journey through post-war Vietnam. Could be a good bit of historical non-fiction for your brother, as well as something to read during down time.

Here is the mobile version of your link

I really enjoyed Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham. Apparently the guy just went and left his job in the aerospace industry to go on a journey from Mexico all the way up the Pacific Northwest and over to Japan and Vietnam.