Books That Furthered A Soldier's Education

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Craig Mullaney’s The Unforgiving Minute is the story of a young man’s education in life, war, and books. In an appendix, Mullaney, a graduate of West Point, the United States Army Ranger School, and Oxford (he currently teaches at the Naval Academy in Baltimore), recommends more than 130 novels, histories, philosophical tracts, poems, and essays.

Here's a sampling of the books and authors he found most valuable.

At School

The Brothers Karamozov,Fyodor Dostoevsky
Candide, Voltaire
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain
Just and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer
Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault
On War, Carl von Clausewitz
Platoon Leader, James McDonough
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
With the Old Breed, E.B. Sledge

At War

Bhagavad-Gita
The Bible, Isaiah and the Gospel according to John
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Enchiridion, Epictetus
Henry V, William Shakespeare
The Koran
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot
Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri
The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
Wilfred Owen

At Home

Admiral James Stockdale
Heraclitus
Journey’s End, R.C. Sherriff
Rabindranath Tagore
“Ulysses,” Alfred Lord Tennyson

Have you read these? What would you recommend?

Check out an interview with The Unforgiving Minute author Craig M. Mullaney here

Thanks for your comment and recommendations!