Here are 100 books that Hippie Chick fans have personally recommended if you like Hippie Chick. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of An American Tune

Rita Dragonette Author Of The Fourteenth of September

From my list on the Vietnam War era by women writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the role of women in war: men may be on the front lines, but women deal with its impact and often struggle to have equal standing. I was inspired by stories told by my mother who was a nurse in World War II and participated in surgery under gunfire and helped liberate a POW camp in Germany. Yet, no one wanted to hear from her because she was “just a nurse.” Fast forward to Vietnam where women were still being marginalized. I wrote The Fourteenth of September to even the playing field by telling a story that was largely based upon my own experience in college during l969-1970.

Rita's book list on the Vietnam War era by women writers

Rita Dragonette Why Rita loves this book

A great story about the dark side of trying to do the right thing:

A radical, anti-Vietnam War protestor is involved in an incident where someone is inadvertently killed and is forced to go underground, where she builds a new identity and law-abiding life. Thirty years later she is recognized by a former classmate and, facing a long-delayed jail sentence, must find a way to explain it all to her family, friends, and above all, her daughter.

By Barbara Shoup ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked An American Tune as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

While reluctantly accompanying her husband and daughter to freshman orientation at Indiana University, Nora Quillen hears someone call her name, a name she has not heard in more than 25 years. Not even her husband knows that back in the '60s she was Jane Barth, a student deeply involved in the antiwar movement. An American Tune moves back and forth in time, telling the story of Jane, a girl from a working-class family who fled town after she was complicit in a deadly bombing, and Nora, the woman she became, a wife and mother living a quiet life in northern…


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Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Book cover of Like A Complete Unknown

Rita Dragonette Author Of The Fourteenth of September

From my list on the Vietnam War era by women writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the role of women in war: men may be on the front lines, but women deal with its impact and often struggle to have equal standing. I was inspired by stories told by my mother who was a nurse in World War II and participated in surgery under gunfire and helped liberate a POW camp in Germany. Yet, no one wanted to hear from her because she was “just a nurse.” Fast forward to Vietnam where women were still being marginalized. I wrote The Fourteenth of September to even the playing field by telling a story that was largely based upon my own experience in college during l969-1970.

Rita's book list on the Vietnam War era by women writers

Rita Dragonette Why Rita loves this book

The book that proves your mother was right about what would happen “if:”

A story of a teenage runaway in l970 who gets herself into “trouble,” that offers a visceral kaleidoscope of the adventures of the era—the good and the bad—and makes you feel like you personally went through it all. It echoes through today with its theme of choice that is taken away from young men fleeing the draft, and from young women without governance over their own bodies.

By Anara Guard ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Like A Complete Unknown as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Honorable Mention -- Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year 2022 for indie fiction.
 

A luminous novel about freedom, persistence, and the power of compassion.
 
In 1970, a girl's life is not her own. Katya Warshawsky runs away from home rather than settle for the narrow life her parents demand of her. She revels in Chicago's counterculture, plunging into anti-war protests, communal living, and new liberties. But even in this free-wheeling world, she confronts bewildering obstacles. Still, she won't relinquish her dream of becoming an artist or her belief in a better world, and turns to Robert Lewis, hoping the…


Book cover of No Rules: A Memoir

Rita Dragonette Author Of The Fourteenth of September

From my list on the Vietnam War era by women writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the role of women in war: men may be on the front lines, but women deal with its impact and often struggle to have equal standing. I was inspired by stories told by my mother who was a nurse in World War II and participated in surgery under gunfire and helped liberate a POW camp in Germany. Yet, no one wanted to hear from her because she was “just a nurse.” Fast forward to Vietnam where women were still being marginalized. I wrote The Fourteenth of September to even the playing field by telling a story that was largely based upon my own experience in college during l969-1970.

Rita's book list on the Vietnam War era by women writers

Rita Dragonette Why Rita loves this book

When a girl is stuck between generations in the early days of feminism:

A classic coming-of-age memoir of the early ‘70s, where a 16-year-old who thinks she has it all figured out, hits the road. She is forced to learn fast as she encounters dropouts, draft dodgers, and communal living, all the while running up against the sexism that masqueraded as freedom and love as she discovers by trial and error, the liberated woman she wants to be.

By Sharon Dukett ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked No Rules as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this coming-of-age memoir, Sharon takes you with her on a nail-biting adventure through the early 1970s after leaving her sheltered home life at sixteen years old to join the hippies. Yearning for freedom, she lands in an adult world for which she is unprepared, and must learn quickly in order to survive.

As Sharon navigates the US and Canada-whether by hitchhiking, bicycle, or the back of a motorcycle-she experiences love and heartbreak, discovers whom she can and cannot trust, and awakens to the growing women's liberation movement while living in a rural off-grid commune. In this colorful memoir, she…


If you love Ilene English...

Book cover of Memento: A Novel in Dreams, Thoughts, and Images

Memento by Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau,

Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away. 

When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…

Book cover of Cementville

Rita Dragonette Author Of The Fourteenth of September

From my list on the Vietnam War era by women writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the role of women in war: men may be on the front lines, but women deal with its impact and often struggle to have equal standing. I was inspired by stories told by my mother who was a nurse in World War II and participated in surgery under gunfire and helped liberate a POW camp in Germany. Yet, no one wanted to hear from her because she was “just a nurse.” Fast forward to Vietnam where women were still being marginalized. I wrote The Fourteenth of September to even the playing field by telling a story that was largely based upon my own experience in college during l969-1970.

Rita's book list on the Vietnam War era by women writers

Rita Dragonette Why Rita loves this book

A great portrayal of how the impact of war becomes part of our DNA whoever we are.

In the summer of 1969, a small town in Kentucky was famously traumatized after the decimation of the entire National Guard Unit it sent to Vietnam, a higher percentage of deaths than any other geographic region in the country. Based upon a real-life incident, this ingenious novel traces the repercussions of grief and loss through every level of the town’s society.

By Paulette Livers ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cementville as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cementville has a breathtaking set up: 1969. A small Kentucky town, known only for its excellent bourbon and passable cement, direct from the factory that gives the town its name. The favored local sons of Cementville’s most prominent families all joined the National Guard hoping to avoid the draft and the killing fields of Vietnam. They were sent to combat anyway, and seven boys were killed in a single, horrific ambush.

The novel opens as the coffins are making their way home, along with one remaining survivor, the now-maimed town quarterback recently rescued from a Vietnamese prison camp. Yet the…


Book cover of Just Another Sheep #1

Nathan Nish Author Of Branching Chaos

From my list on horror books that don't appear to be horror.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've loved horror since I was a kid. However, the horror of the unexpected has frequently popped up in my life. This started most prominently with a day on the beach, near the haunted Hotel del Coronado; while my mind was busy thinking of ghosts, I busily picked up various seashells, only to be shocked to find a crab in one of the shells I had attempted to retrieve. Several paranormal experiences and many late nights of research later, I have become the writer presenting you this list today. I've spent a lot of time watching movies, teaching, and reading about sociology. Happy reading!

Nathan's book list on horror books that don't appear to be horror

Nathan Nish Why Nathan loves this book

It's another sci-fi book! Luckily, it has a fun, psychedelic-flower-child color palette, so it should be fine.

Probably the biggest stretch on this list, this is mostly horror by implication. There are a lot of real-life event references, several characters are hippies (including the main character), and there's even a thread of romance. On the flip side, there's also some other stuff from the era of the "Summer of Love", like clandestine organizations and war protests that poignantly reminded me of the oxymoron, "fighting for peace".

By Mat Heagerty , Jon Cairns (colorist) , JD Faith (artist)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Just Another Sheep #1 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1969 a timid teen sets out on a road trip. His goal? Find out the origins of his bizarre super human abilities. Always the follower, his trip is derailed when he befriends a group of extremist war protesters


Book cover of Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle

Amanda Cockrell Author Of Coyote Weather

From my list on the Sixties and the Vietnam War era.

Why am I passionate about this?

Almost all of my books have been historical novels, but this one is the one most dear to me, an attempt to understand the fault line that the Vietnam War laid across American society, leaving almost every man of my generation with scars physical or psychic. My picks are all books that illuminate the multiple upheavals of that time.

Amanda's book list on the Sixties and the Vietnam War era

Amanda Cockrell Why Amanda loves this book

This is a classic account of the rebellious souls of the counterculture who attempted to disentangle themselves from a society they found stifling and parasitic.

Coyote’s memoir is sometimes bleak, sometimes funny, almost always endearing even through the worst of unintended consequences.

A brutally and beautifully written picture of a time that sought to remake America for the better.

By Peter Coyote ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sleeping Where I Fall as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In his energetic, funny, and intelligent memoir, Peter Coyote relives his fifteen-year ride through the heart of the counterculture—a journey that took him from the quiet rooms of privilege as the son of an East Coast stockbroker to the riotous life of political street theater and the self-imposed poverty of the West Coast communal movement known as The Diggers. With this innovative collective of artist-anarchists who had assumed as their task nothing less than the re-creation of the nation’s political and social soul, Coyote and his companions soon became power players.

In prose both graphic and unsentimental, Coyote reveals the…


If you love Hippie Chick...

Book cover of Salvation in the Sun

Salvation in the Sun by Lauren Lee Merewether,

In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.

Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…

Book cover of Life Without Water

Susan Emshwiller Author Of Thar She Blows

From my list on first-person narrators navigating screwed-up lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am fascinated by first-person points of view. In writing plays and screenplays, I couldn’t write the inner thoughts of my characters. Now, in novels and short stories, I do that almost exclusively, even if the stories contain multiple narrators. I love the Unreliable Narrator—whether it is someone too young to understand what they are witnessing, someone who is in denial, or mentally ill, or a non-human experiencing the world in an odd way—the discrepancy between their view and mine delights me. I love discovering all those inner thoughts, fears, anxieties, and desires. These first-person stories let me into another’s experience and allow me to empathize with a whole new perspective.  

Susan's book list on first-person narrators navigating screwed-up lives

Susan Emshwiller Why Susan loves this book

This book immersed me in a ramshackle house, a group of hippies, the smell of bread, the feel of weeds, and the sounds of fighting— through the eyes and heart of Cedar, a young girl.

All the confusion of growing up play out in her unique home life. The writing, through her point-of-view, is truly magical. I kept jotting down incredible phrases as I read and identified with all the longing, anger, loving, and coming-of-age-pains this child experiences.

By Nancy Peacock ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Life Without Water as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is the kind of book that you read, love and then give to a friend saying, "You have to read this...

In a powerful and acute debut, highly acclaimed author Nancy Peacock gives us a young narrator who is both knowing and innocent, trusting and fearful: a girl named Cedar, who reflects on her childhood in the wake of the Vietnam war. As she and her young mother Sara both come of age, Cedar explores the intense bond--and discovers the boundaries--of their mother-daughter relationship. Living as hippies in an abandoned farmhouse in North Carolina, Sara and Cedar survive a…


Book cover of The Easter Offensive: The Last American Advisors, Vietnam, 1972

Matt Jackson Author Of Undaunted Valor: An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam

From my list on how and why we fought in the Vietnam War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent twenty five years on active duty with nineteen months in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. I served as a tactics instructor at the US Army Infantry Center; two years teaching the operational level of war at the US Army Command and General Staff College; two years teaching at the German Army Tactics Center. I commanded two rifle companies, one being an Airborne rifle company in Alaska and served two years as battalion commander of an air assault infantry battalion during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. I hold a Masters Degree in Military Strategy from the US Army Command and Staff College. 

Matt's book list on how and why we fought in the Vietnam War

Matt Jackson Why Matt loves this book

I recommend this book as it is a firsthand account of actions by US Advisors to the South Vietnamese forces in the spring of 1972. The author exposes the flaws that caused the North Vietnamese forces to have such success in the opening days.

I found his examples of leadership, duty, and honor to be exceptional, and not only his actions but the actions of most of the advisors. I was surprised by the examples of Vietnamese bravery, especially in the South Vietnamese Marines and airborne units, something that I had not seen in my nineteen months serving in Vietnam. 

By Gerald H. Turley ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Easter Offensive as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Easter Offensive was a military campaign conducted by the People's Army of Vietnam against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the United States military between 30 March and 22 October 1972, during the Vietnam War. This conventional invasion was a radical departure from previous North Vietnamese offensives. The offensive was not designed to win the war outright, but North Vietnam aimed to gain as much territory and destroy as many units of South Vietnam as possible, to improve the North's negotiating position as the Paris Peace Accords drew toward a conclusion.

This thoroughly documented chronology serves both…


Book cover of Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram

Wendell Affield Author Of Muddy Jungle Rivers: A river assault boat cox'n's memory journey of his war in Vietnam

From my list on the Vietnam war that explore waste and loss.

Why am I passionate about this?

As I write this, I massage aching bits of shrapnel still embedded beneath silvered scars. I’ve read many Vietnam War stories—praising the war, glorifying combat, condemning the war. My stories are 1st person limited POV, voice of a twenty-year-old sailor. My title is a spin-off of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. By the time I wrote my memoir, I realized that our national goals in Vietnam had been Muddy from the beginning. I too, traveled Jungle Rivers. During my time on the riverboat, I witnessed Rivers of blood—rivers of life, trickle across our deck. And yes, Jungle is a fitting metaphor for our life at that time.

Wendell's book list on the Vietnam war that explore waste and loss

Wendell Affield Why Wendell loves this book

As a child, I lived in abject poverty on a little farm in northern Minnesota. By ten years old I was trapping raccoons and shooting squirrels to help put food on our table. When I was in Vietnam, I felt a deep empathy for the Vietnamese fishermen and farmers who lived in poverty complicated by the vicious war. Years later when I began reading Dang Thuy Tram’s diary, I couldn’t put it down. The loss and waste and love for her comrades struck close to home and made me feel guilty for my participation in the war. In her writing, Dang brings to life so many of her Vietnamese comrades who were killed—making one stop to consider the cost of war. In a way the book reminds me of All Quiet on the Western Front written by a German soldier—the loss and waste.

By Dang Thuy Tram ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Last Night I Dreamed of Peace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'THE VIETNAMESE ANNE FRANK'

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is the moving diary kept by a 27-year-old Vietnamese doctor who was killed by the Americans during the Vietnam War, while trying to defend her patients. Not only is it an important slice of history, from the opposite side of Dispatches and Apocalypse Now, but it shows the diarist - Dang Thuy Tram - as a vibrant human being, full of youthful idealism, a poetic longing for love, trying hard to be worthy of the Communist Party and doing her best to look after her patients under appalling conditions.

She…


If you love Ilene English...

Book cover of Foxfire in the Snow

Foxfire in the Snow by J.S. Fields,

It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.

Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…

Book cover of The Long-Range War: Sniping In Vietnam

Michael Lee Lanning Author Of Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam

From my list on snipers in the Vietnam War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I served as an infantry platoon leader, reconnaissance platoon leader, and rifle company commander in Vietnam and observed the direct results of snipers. I am the author of 30 non-fiction books on the military (six specifically about the Vietnam War), sports, and health that have sold more than 1.1 million copies in 15 countries and 12 languages.

Michael's book list on snipers in the Vietnam War

Michael Lee Lanning Why Michael loves this book

Contains the history, along with exceptional pictures and illustrations, of Army and Marine snipers in Vietnam. Along with history it details the fielding of rifles, scopes, and suppression devices. More technical than “war story” it provides an excellent base document on which to build an education on long range shooting by American soldiers and Marines in the Vietnam War.

By Peter R. Senich ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Long-Range War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is the most complete report ever on the U.S. military's unprecedented use of snipers and sniping equipment in Vietnam. Highlighted are the fielding of the XM21 sniper rifle and the Adjustable Ranging Telescope, plus the application of sound suppression devices and special carbines so typical of the unconventional warfare in SE Asia. 8 1/2 x 11, hardcover, photos, illus., 280 pp.


Book cover of An American Tune
Book cover of Like A Complete Unknown
Book cover of No Rules: A Memoir

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5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Vietnam War, psychedelics, and hippies?

The Vietnam War 263 books
Psychedelics 23 books
Hippies 58 books