Last week I packed up part of my personal library. It's supposed to rain today, so I'll probably pack more of it after I get up. My library is small as you would expect from years of living in apartments...small, but solid. Not much fluff in my library. I don't read mass-market paperbacks in general. Fiction has its place, of course, but I have no use for most of it. (You can keep whatever's popular this month) Some classic 20th-century novels are great...I dig post-apoc fiction, too.
The following is a brief, somewhat random selection mostly from the general & mil history parts of my library. Titles with an asterisk are must-read items:
The Epic of Gilgamesh* – Herbert Mason, trans.
Cradle of Civilization – Samuel Noah Kramer (Time-Life Books)
Ancient China – Edward H. Schafer (Time-Life Books)
Atlas of the Bible – Joseph L. Gardner (ed.)
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 BC to AD 68 – H. H. Scullard
The Great Arab Conquests* – Hugh Kennedy
The Closing of the Western Mind* – Charles Freeman
The Story of Civilization IV: The Age of Faith* – Will Durant
Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages – Mark R. Cohen
Frederick the Great – Gerhard Ritter
American Creation – Joseph J. Ellis
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America* – Nancy Isenberg
The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire – Alan Palmer
Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899 – Dominic Green
Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany 1933-1939 – David Schoenbaum
The Harvest of Sorrow – Robert Conquest
Sacred Causes* – Michael Burleigh
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History – Robert D. Kaplan
A Dictionary of European Land Battles From the Earliest Times to 1945 – John Sweetman
A History of Warfare – John Keegan
The Anatomy of Error – Barry Strauss, Josiah Ober
Qadesh 1300 BC: Clash of the Warrior Kings – Mark Healy (Osprey Campaign Series 22)
Ancient Israel at War 853-586 BC – Brad E. Kelle
Cannae* – Adrian Goldsworthy
Armies of the Carthaginian Wars 265-146 BC – Terence Wise, Richard Hook (Osprey Men-At-Arms Series 121)
The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Land Empire in History – Thomas J. Craughwell
The Templars – Piers Paul Read
The Civil War – Bruce Catton
The Guns of August* – Barbara W. Tuchman
A Peace to End All Peace – David Fromkin
Warriors of the Rising Sun – Robert B. Edgerton
No Uncle Sam: The Forgotten of Bataan – Tony Bilek, Gene O'Connell
The Six-Day War 1967: Sinai – Simon Dunstan (Osprey Campaign 212)
Operation Paperclip – Annie Jacobsen
Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 – Bob Woodward
Unintended Consequences* – Peter W. Galbraith
Night Draws Near – Anthony Shadid
Where Men Win Glory – Jon Krakauer
88 Days to Kandahar – Robert L. Grenier
The 9/11 Report* – Thomas H. Kean, Chair; Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chair
The Influence of Seapower Upon History – Alfred Thayer Mahan
100 Mistakes That Changed History – Bill Fawcett
Serpent On the Rock – Kurt Eichenwald
If you're wondering whether to read any of the above...yes. You absolutely should.
