Richard Dreyfuss held up "The Things They Carried" in his fictional college class on "The Education of Max Bickford."

Like the book's author, Dreyfuss' character said, he had to make a decision about going to Vietnam. Whereas Tim O'Brien had gone, he had not, Max Bickford said.

It's not surprising the acclaimed TV drama would use O'Brien's acclaimed book to launch a discussion. Colleges and high schools across the country have been doing so since the book was published 13 years ago.

Now it's Richmond's turn.

Go Read! announced yesterday that it has selected "The Things They Carried" as this year's book for community reading and discussion.

Go Read! is in the second year of a three-year program to bring together residents and students of the metro area through a series of events. Last year's selection was Ernest J. Gaines' "A Les son Before Dying."

O'Brien, talking from his Austin, Texas, home, said he couldn't wait to visit this city - and he was pleased by the selection.

"It means a lot for a writer. I don't write for myself. I write for other people," he said the other day. "It's a great honor and I'm flattered by it, but mostly it's a great pleasure."

O'Brien's book, winner of France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award) and a finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has been called both fiction and autobiographical. It has been called both a novel and a collection of short stories.

"It's partially a book about war, of course, specifically the Vietnam war," offers O'Brien, who will appear at a local student forum and a public reception on Nov. 13, two days after Veterans Day. "I was a soldier over there back in 1969 and 1970, so it comes out of that experience.

"But it's equally a book about writing itself. How do you go about, in language, portraying something that is so vast and also so personal? How do you replicate the horror of it all, the guilt of it all? . . . [The book] retells a number of incidents from different angles, through different characters, as a way of showing stories evolve, they change, especially as people age.

"Finally, it's a book about the issue of truth, in all kinds of ways."

One of the book's stories is about a young man named "Tim O'Brien" who spends six days fishing in Canada contemplating his draft notice.

"Well, I never did that, but I thought that all the time," O'Brien said. "If I had told the truth about the matter, I would have said I played golf and I worried all summer. But that would have been a crummy story and it also wouldn't have gotten to [all of] the truth."

O'Brien, 56, followed up his military service with stints in graduate school at Harvard and in national affairs reporting at The Washington Post.

A series of highly acclaimed books has followed, including "Going After Cacciato" and "In the Lake of the Woods." O'Brien also teaches in Southwest Texas State University's creative writing program; The New York Times reported Saturday that he is paid $120,000 to teach one semester every other year as part of an effort to build the program into one of the nation's best.

"The Things They Carried" - the title refers to talismans and treasures carried into battle by a band of young soldiers - will be on summer reading lists and in fall school curricula in Richmond and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties, thanks to the Go Read! selection.

It likely will be picked up by most local library and book groups. Many area residents will read the book, some doing nothing more, some participating in any of scores of discussions or lectures.

Go Read! is supported by local schools, libraries and corporations. (The Times-Dispatch is the media sponsor and maintains the www.goreadrichmond.com Web site.)

Last year, "A Lesson Before Dying" was read by more than 15,000 locals - probably many more - and was the top seller for 2002 at area Barnes & Noble bookstores.

Visit www.goreadrichmond.com for more information. Periodic listings of Go Read! events will be published here in the fall. To read the book's first story, visit www.amazon.com.

Ray's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Call him at (804) 649-6333; fax (804) 775-8059; or e-mail rmcallister@timesdispatch.com.