This is my reading list; there are many like it, but this one is not in Comic Sans. These used to be the books that were on my office bookshelf when I had an office, or the top shelves on my home office bookshelf when I don’t. I’ve expanded the list, but they’ll all still fit on a single standard bookshelf. I actually own and have read my recommended reading list. It doesn’t change based on the Flavor of the Month flag officer’s reading list, though it will change obviously if I read something worthy of it. For example, my Top Five had two new additions in the previous eighteen months when I first created this list.

Many will scoff at some of the titles (The “eye rolls” will be strong with some of you, but that’s ok because you’re smarter than me), but these books are the most important and useful professional development, history, or common interest books that I’ve read. I highly recommend every one of them. You’ll notice that they’re books for all ages because letting someone borrow one is the quickest way to get them to read it. And some of these books are on their fourth and fifth copies because I never ask for them back as long the borrower reads them (It’s a small price to pay).

If I should die tomorrow, I expect these books on a shelf next to the bar at my wake.

Bukowski’s Top Five

Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945, Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim – Required reading for every military officer. The chapters on training and lessons learned are solid gold.

Ecosynomics: The Science of Abundance, James L Ritchie-Dunham – If you are in the military, don’t let the description dissuade you, Mr. Ritchie-Dunham NAILED Mission Command. “Elegant” is the only word that is appropriate. If you deal in Mission Command and you haven’t read it, the conversation has moved beyond you.

Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power, Victor Davis Hanson – “The Warrior” vs “The Soldier” laid out like TA-50.

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour, James D. Hornfischer – “This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” LCDR Robert W. Copeland USNR, Capt. of the USS Samuel B Roberts “The Destroyer That Fought Like a Battleship” 25 October 1944.

Rwanda, Inc.: How a Devastated Nation Became an Economic Model for the Developing World, Patricia Crisafulli – Required reading for Humanity. There really is hope.

Full List

Mission Command/Leadership

Mission Command: the Who, What Where When and Why, An Anthology Vols I & II, Donald Vandergriff and Stephen Weber

Taking the Guidon: Exceptional Leadership at the Company Level, Nate Allen and Tony Burgess

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime, Elliot A Cohen

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, Robert Corham

The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error In Complex Situations, Dietrich Dorner

The Top Ten Leadership Commandments, Hans Finzel

The Systems Bible: The Beginner’s Guide to Systems Large and Small, John Gall

Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell

How To Say It Best, Jack Griffin

Acts of War: Behavior of Men in Battle, Richard Holmes

Maneuver Warfare, an Anthology, Richard D Hooker

System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, Robert Jervis

The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Stathis N. Kalyvas

Innovative Leadership Fieldbook, Maureen Metcalf

Neostoicism and the Early Modern State, Gerhard Oestreich

Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, Frans PB Osinga

The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806, Peter Paret

Wavell in the Middle East, 1939–1941: A Study in Generalship, Harold E. Raugh Jr.

An Introduction to Military Ethics: A Reference Handbook, Bill Rhodes

Ecosynomics: The Science of Abundance, James L Ritchie-Dunham

The Global Public Relations Handbook, Revised and Expanded Edition: Theory, Research, and Practice, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh and Dejan Vercic

The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness, Jonas Salzgeber

The Greenhill Dictionary Of Military Quotations, Peter G. Tsouras

Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty, Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe

The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805, Charles Edward White

Information Operations

Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, Saul Alinsky

Logic Made Easy: How to Know When Language Deceives You, Deborah J. Bennett

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini

Influence: Science and Practice, Robert B. Cialdini

Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Jacques Ellul

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer

Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond, Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman

What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People, Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins

Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion, Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson

Counter-Democracy: Politics in the Age of Distrust, Pierre Rosanvallon

From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, Gene Sharp

General Military History/Theory

Composite Warfare, Eeben Barlow

The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, Max Boot

The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815, Tim Blanning

On War, Carl von Clausewitz

Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, David Galula

Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power, Victor Davis Hanson

Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present, William Murray and Peter Mansoor

Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Peter Paret

Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times, Peter Paret

One Hundred Unorthodox Strategies: Battle And Tactics Of Chinese Warfare, Ralph D. Sawyer

Definitive Military History

The Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson

Crete: the Battle and the Resistance, Anthony Beevor

La Grande Army, Georges Blonde

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell, Peter Caddick-Adams

The Triumph, HW Crocker III

White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 and The Miracle on the Vistula, Norman Davies

Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac’s Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America, David Dixon

Closing With the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945, Michael D. Doubler

When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House

An Improvised War: The Abyssinia Campaign 1940-1941, Michael Glover

El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency, Ioan Grillo

A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, Victor Davis Hanson

In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr

The Story of the U.S. Cavalry, 1775-1942, John K Herr

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour, James D. Hornfischer

Neptune’s Inferno,The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, James D. Hornfischer

The Peloponnesian War, Robert Kagan

The Armada, Gareth Mattingly

Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945, Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim

The Pacific War Trilogy, Ian Toll

The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain, John Lawrence Tone

The Big Red One: America’s Legendary 1st Infantry Division, James Scott Wheeler

Vietnam

Hue, 1968, Mark Bowden

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, Bernard Fall

Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, HR McMaster

Dispatches, Michael Herr

Summons of Trumpet, Dave Palmer

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, John A. Nagl and Peter J. Schoomaker

A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam, Lewis Sorley

The Village, Bing West

Iraq/Islam/Middle East

Sword and the Scimitar, Raymond Ibrahim

The Quranic Concept of War, Brig S. K. Malik

The Arab Mind, Raphael Patai

Milestones, Sayed Qutb

The Unraveling, Emma Sky

Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad, David Zucchino

Afghanistan

Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, Sean Naylor

Passing It On: Fighting the Pashtun on Afghanistan’s Frontier, Sir Andrew Skeen

Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban, Stephen Tanner

The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, Jake Tapper

Hints on Irregular Cavalry: Its Conformation, Management and Use in Both a Military and Political Point of View (1845), Charles Farquhar Trower

Africa

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Mark Bowden

Rwanda, Inc.: How a Devastated Nation Became an Economic Model for the Developing World, Patricia Crisafulli

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Roméo Dallaire

States and Power in Africa, Jeffery Herbst

The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence, Martin Meredith

The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912, Thomas Pakenham

The Colonial Frontier

(Still working.)

Historical Study

Telling the Truth About History, Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob

Modern Historiography: An Introduction, Michael Bentley

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn

Fiction

The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa, Michael L. Burgoyne

Team Yankee: A Novel of World War III, Harold Coyle

The Third World War/The Third World War: The Untold Story, Sir John Hackett

Three Cups of Bullshit, Greg Mortensen

First Clash: Combat Close-Up In World War Three, Kenneth Macksey

Defense of Hill 781: An Allegory of Modern Mechanized Combat, James R. McDonough

Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae, Steven Pressfield

The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, Ernest Dunlop Swinton

Battle Cry, Leon Uris

Writing

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, H Porter Abbot

The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition.

Fowler’s Modern English Usage, R.W. Burchfield

Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History, Jim Cullen

It was the Best of Sentences, It was the Worst of Sentences, June Casagrande

The Best Punctuation Book, Period., June Casagrande

Misc

The Law of Self Defense 3rd Edition, Andrew Branca

You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense, Charles Bukowski

Back to Basics, Abighail R. Gehring

The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe, Vaclav Havel

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger

Do the Work!, Steven Pressfield

Rugby: The Player’s Handbook, M. B. Roberts and Ronald C. Modra

Why We Get Fat, Gary Taubes

Fun

The Three Musketeers Trilogy, Alexandre Dumas

Conan/Soloman Kaine Collection, Robert E. Howard

Eye of the World/The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan

The Annotated Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

Rock and Roll, An Unruly History, Robert Palmer

The Trilogy/The Teutonic Knights, Henryk Sienkiewicz

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

The Raiding Forces series, Phil Ward

The Sword of Honour Trilogy, Eveyln Waugh