The Sea Wolf


Jack London - 1904
    He is set adrift in the Bay, eventually being picked up by Wolf Larsen.Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting schooner, the Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent and intellectual, he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his exceptionally great physical strength.

Mister Roberts


Thomas Heggen - 1946
    Beginning as a collection of short stories, Heggen based his novel on his experiences aboard the USS Virgo in the South Pacific during WWII . Irreverent, hilarious, the book shows readers what a real leader is in the guise of Mr. Roberts!

Matterhorn


Karl Marlantes - 2009
    It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.Written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable novel that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice: a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. This is his first novel. He lives in rural Washington State.

True Grit


Charles Portis - 1968
    But even though this gutsy 14-year-old is seeking vengeance, she is smart enough to figure out she can't go alone after a desperado who's holed up in Indian territory. With some fast-talking, she convinces mean, one-eyed US Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn into going after the despicable outlaw with her.

Rules for a Knight


Ethan Hawke - 2015
    In a series of ruminations on solitude, humility, forgiveness, honesty, courage, grace, pride, and patience, he draws on the ancient teachings of Eastern and Western philosophy, and on the great spiritual and political writings of our time. His intent: to give his children a compass for a journey they will have to make alone, a short guide to what gives life meaning and beauty.

84, Charing Cross Road


Helene Hanff - 1970
    Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that will grab your heart and not let go.

The Zane Grey Frontier Trilogy: Betty Zane, The Last Trail, The Spirit of the Border


Zane Grey - 2000
    In The Last Trail, a woman is kidnapped from Fort Henry by a band of renegades and hostile Ohio Valley Indians, and Lewis Wetzel and Jonathan Zane set out in pursuit, with little hope of survival. Finally, in The Spirit of the Border, Lewis Wetzel must single-handedly save Fort Henry, armed only with his long rifle and knife.

MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors


Richard Hooker - 1968
    The doctors who worked in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) during the Korean War were well trained but, like most soldiers sent to fight a war, too young for the job. In the words of the author, "a few flipped their lids, but most of them just raised hell, in a variety of ways and degrees."For fans of the movie and the series alike, here is the original version of that perfectly corrupt football game, those martini-laced mornings and sexual escapades, and that unforgettable foray into assisted if incompleted suicide--all as funny and poignant now as they were before they became a part of America's culture and heart.

Rites of Passage


William Golding - 1980
    Full of wit and disdain, he records the mounting tensions on the ancient, stinking warship where officers, sailors, soldiers and emigrants jostle in the cramped spaces below decks. Then a single passenger, the obsequious Reverend Colley, attracts the animosity of the sailors, and in the seclusion of the fo'castle something happens to bring him into a 'hell of degradation', where shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself.

Tales of the Jazz Age


F. Scott Fitzgerald - 1922
    Icky" "Jemina"

Sails on the Horizon


Jay Worrall - 2005
    Napoleon Bonaparte is racking up impressive wins in the field against the enemies of revolutionary France, while on the seas England is putting up a staunch resistance. Twenty-five-year-old Charles Edgemont is second lieutenant aboard the British ship Argonaut. When orders come for the Argonaut to engage in an all-but-suicidal maneuver to prevent the escape of Spanish ships off the coast of Portugal, he leads his gun crews bravely–until the deaths of the captain and first lieutenant elevate him to commander. For refusing to yield to enemy fire, Charles is permanently promoted and generously rewarded by the Admiralty, becoming wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Yet upon his return home, his newfound riches prove no help when it comes to winning the heart of Penelope Brown, who regards war as sinful and soldiers as little better than murderers. Changing Penelope’s mind may just be the hardest battle Charles has ever fought–at least until fresh orders send him back to sea, where he faces a formidable adversary in a series of stirring battles of will and might.

Coward on the Beach, Vol. 1


James Delingpole - 2007
    World War II's answer to Flashman, only much more honourable - Dick's a coward by name but not by nature - our hero has the uncanny knack of being in just the right place at just the wrong time.

Dances with Wolves


Michael Blake - 1988
    Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever. Relive the adventure and beauty of the incredible movie, Dances with Wolves.

A Soldier of the Great War


Mark Helprin - 1991
    Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, tall and proud, meets an illiterate young factory worker on the road. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers away, the old man—a soldier and a hero who became a prisoner and then a deserter, wandering in the hell that claimed Europe—tells him how he tragically lost one family and gained another. The boy, envying the richness and drama of Alessandro's experiences, realizes that this magnificent tale is not merely a story: it's a recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family.

Gone to Sea in a Bucket


David Black - 2015
    This wasn’t it. Norway, 1940: Sub Lieutenant Harry Gilmour’s first encounter with battleship action is not the adventure he had hoped for. Faced with a thankless task and ill equipped to handle it, Gilmour’s inexperience leads to a damning allegation. His future hangs in the balance.But then Lieutenant Peter Dumaresq steps in to offer him a lifeline—an advanced navigation course that will take him aboard a crack submarine, HMS Pelorus, under the command of a Royal Navy hero. Faced with a possible court martial, Harry chooses life underwater. Once aboard, however, Harry is confronted for the first time by the full horror of submarine warfare. If he can just overcome his fears, it will be the making of him.Because survival itself is the challenge now. For Harry and the rest of the crew, the next depth charge could be the one that sinks them.