Courtesy of The Big Picture

So halfway through writing this, the Internet showed me up. If you don’t already subscribe to the Boston Globe’s earth-shatteringly fantastic photo-essay column ‘The Big Picture‘ you need to stop reading this and go do that. To quote an exasperatedly red planet, DO THAT. Once you’ve got red-hot, amazing, archival quality photos dumping into your feedbox every couple days, you’ll forget all about cobra snakes, breast-centric cities and towns, ffffounds…all of ‘em. This is not amateur hour. This is history Porn. This is the real thing. Space, Culture, Current Events, Disasters…you name it. Done. Professionally. Lovingly. Forever-style.

Courtesy of The Big Picture

Last Friday’s edition of The Big Picture was especially gripping…it commemorated the 35th  anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War with some amazing and chilling photographs. I had been thinking of doing a Book Find on a book I purchased in the Barnes & Noble clearance aisle a few years (ok more than a few) back and boom, this thing landed on me. So, whether you think the book is cool or whether this post exposes you to an amazing body of documents…I’m fine with either.

NAM: The Vietnam Experience 1965-75 (edited by Tim Page and John Pimlott) is more or less your typical B&N clearance fare. If you’ve ever wandered up and down these aisles you may know what I mean…tabloid-style books—usually hardcover—that are full of poorly-printed photos and questionable information. Maybe some Taschen art books thrown in for good measure. I LOVE this section of the bookstore, as you can get some really awesome photo and/or design reference books for under ten bucks. I highly recommend drunkenly browsing it. You will come home with many books.

I picked this book up when I was fascinated by the M-16 and all it’s brothers and sisters. While I’ve since outgrown that phase (or at least assimilated it into all my other phases, go fig), I flip through these pages every now and again and bug my eyes out at some of the amazing photos and wonder at some of the outlandish headlines.

That all said, go read The Big Picture.

- Hateball