Dispatches

By: Michael Herr

Narrated by: Ray Porter

"The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines.

From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.

Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

Critic reviews

“The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time.” —John le Carré

“In the great line of Crane, Orwell, and Hemingway . . . Herr reaches an excruciating level of intensity . . . He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . The premier war correspondence of Vietnam.” —The Washington Post

" . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."
—Hunter S. Thompson

Amazing!

I can’t recommend this audiobook enough. Fantastic vivid writing. Do yourself a favor and listen to it! Best book about the war that I’ve read.

fantastic recollection

incredible and vivid recounting of a defining event in American being. RIP to a legend who just wanted to be am Oscar Meyer wiener

Brilliant reader.

Great description of the war. Episodic and full of arresting images and people.
Captures the chaos.

A remarkable performance of a remarkable book.

Dispatches is the most beautifully written book about the horrors of war. This reading does the content justice. I would absolutely recommend it.

Audio even better than reading it

I first read this book thirty years ago as part of a graduate school seminar on literature from the Vietnam war. Ray Porter does a fantastic job of really bringing the story to life. I got much more out of it from listening to it vs. reading it.