The Reading List

When I was a kid I was an extremely avid reader. I read several of the Brian Jacques novels, a bunch of "Franklin W. Dixon"'s Hardy Boys mystery novels, a couple of Nancy Drew mysteries, some of the Star Trek novels, and any number of other books. I didn't read as much as a couple of my friends (one of whom turned into a pot-smoking college dropout, the other a powerful super-nerd), but I read a lot.

This declined in middle school, and stopped almost altogether in high school. I enjoyed a bit of a resurgence my senior year of high school, when I read Left Behind, Iron Coffins, SSN by Tom Clancy, Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, and Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.

I read very little during my first year of college, but I read more during the following Summer. The Summer 2001 reading list included The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (which I'd read before as a kid) and Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko. It was about this time that I decided to compose an official reading list in order to keep an organized record of what I've read, and what I want to read. Here's what I have on the list, yet to read:

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Age of the Caliphs by Bertold Spuler

American Caesar by William Raymond Manchester

Amores by Ovid

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Annals of Imperial Rome by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus

The Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius

Armor by John Steakley

The Army of the Caesars by Michael Grant

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napolean by Gunther E. Rothenberg

The Assyrian by Nicholas Guild

Beowulf

Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag

Blood Star by Nicholas Guild

Bored of the Rings by the Harvard Lampoon

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum

The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Brown Water, Black Berets by Thomas J. Cutler

Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

The City of God by Augustine

The Civil War by Gaius Julius Caesar

Class 29: The Making of U.S. Navy SEALs by John Carl Roat

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Combat Swimmer: Memoirs of a Navy SEAL by Robert Gormly

Confessions by Augustine

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose

Dear Mom: A Sniper's Vietnam by Joseph T. Ward

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward S. Gibbon

Delta Force by Charlie A. Beckwith

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Dune series by Frank Herbert

Enemy at the Gates by William Craig

Face of the Enemy by Richard Fawkes

First SEAL by Roy Boehm

Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley

Foundation series by Isaac Asimov

Free Fire Zones by Kevin Dockery

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (MDL)

From the Gracchi to Nero by Howard H. Scullard

Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development by E.W. Marsden

Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises by E.W. Marsden

Hellburner by C.J. Cherryh

The Histories by Herodotus

The Histories by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus

A History of Militarism: Civilian and Military by Alfred Vagts

History of the Church by Eusebius

History of Rome by Titus Livius Livy

The Hitchhiker's Guide Series by Douglas Adams

Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell

Hunters and Shooters edited by Bill Fawcett

The Iliad by Homer

I Could Never Be So Lucky Again by James H. Doolittle

Illegal Alien by Robert J. Sawyer

Immediate Action by Andy McNab

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

The Influence of Sea Power on History by A.T. Mahan

Islam: The View from the Edge by Richard W. Bulliet

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Julian by Gore Vidal

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Knight's Cross by David Fraser

Lead, Kindly Light by Agnes Loewen and Helen Grace Lescheid

Lives of the Greeks and Romans by Plutarch

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Lost Moon by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger

Making of a Royal Marines Commando by Nigel Foster

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit by Tom Clancy

Master Chief: Diary of a Navy SEAL by Gary R. Smith

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Metamorphoses by Ovid

MI6 by Stephen Dorril

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

The Military Revolution by Geoffrey Parker

Mission Compromised by Oliver North

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

My War Gone By, I Miss It So by Anthony Loyd

Nelson: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert

Not by Strength by Guile by Pete Mercer

The Odyssey by Homer

On Killing by Dave Grossman

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Paradise Regained by John Milton

Pegasus Bridge by Stephen E. Ambrose

The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Pharsalia by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Pontius Pilate by Ann Wroe

The Postman by David Brin

Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke

Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein

The Republic by Plato

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Roman Britain: Outpost of the Empire by Howard H. Scullard

Roman History by Appian

The Royal Marines by Julian Thompson

The Royal Marines: A History by Richard Brooks

SEALs in Action by Kevin Dockery

Shadow War by Richard Miniter

Silent Warrior: The Marine Sniper's Vietnam Story Continues by Charles Henderson

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Somalia on $5 a Day by Martin Stanton

The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor

Star Trek: Enterprise Logs by various authors

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship by Tom Clancy

Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

The Sword and the Shield by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin

Take That Hill! by Nick Vaux

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

The Teams edited by Kevin Dockery and Bill Fawcett

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton

The Thin Red Line by James Jones

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Tides of War by Steven Pressfield

Timeline by Michael Crichton

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

U2 at the End of the World by Bill Flanagan

Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North

The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking

Utopia by Thomas More

A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers

War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620 by J.R. Hale

War As I Knew It by George S. Patton, Jr.

War of the Rats by David Robbins

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Warfare in the Western World by various authors

We Were Soldiers Once, and Young by Harold G. Moore

The Way of the Gladiator by Daniel P. Mannix

The Wild Blue by Stephen E. Ambrose

The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor by Darcy Lever

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Do any of you have an official list of books you intend to read? If so, post a link to it. This is the reason I asked for readers to vote on a select number of books: I already have a massive list of unread literature, and I've narrowed down a selection of a handful of those books from the list. I don't need more books added to the small list, though I'm always putting new books on the big list.

Dig?