Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire your 5 must-read books

One of those " if you were King" questions.

If you had a means of influencing public school instruction on a global level by being given the opportunity to select 5 books that would forever become part of mandatory reading list across the world (go with me here!) which 5 would you choose?

** 2 bricks of cci minimag as extra credit for including your reasoning.
(not really, that'd be like $280 bucks by next week) **



K-8, mix and match any grade level.

fiction or non-fiction acceptable.


no pamphlets please.
And the consitution is not a book.

Roll of thunder hear my cry.
Hatchet
The total money make over.
The bible.
7 habits of highly effective kids.

Candide by Voltaire
Journal of Lewis and Clark
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Leaves of Grass
Walden

The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings......To instill a love of reading and the sense of adventure which can be found in literature.

Frank Herbert's Dune........A fine if fictional account of what determined,free minded men can accomplish against overwhelming technological and numerical odds.

Passport by Bruce Herschensoh : A biography, in novel form to help keep it moving, of the foreign policy of the United States from 1960-1997. It helps to explain the inevitable results of unchecked Socialism and why so many brave young men forfeited their lives in the effort to reign in Socialism.

It contains one very moving chapter dealing with the Tienanmen Square incident.

Lonesome Dove..............Our youth should understand that a cold drink and a snack was not always just four steps away in the fridge. This nation was built through tremendous effort, risk, and sacrifice.

Call of the Wild...........Once again, the world did not always consist of climate controlled environments and full refrigerators.

Animal Farm

Gospel of John
The Road to Serfdom
1984
The Gulag Archipelago
The Federalist Papers

1- Bible (whether you're a chrIstian or not it'll do good for you to read it)

2- Big Book of AA (practical tips for good living for Alcoholics & non)

3- Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (a beautiful exposition of what it means to be devoted to a place and a person)

4- Christianity and Liberalism J. Gresham Machen

5- Trout Bum by John Gierach

The Bible

The Federalist Papers

Atlas Shrugged

1984

Texas by James A. Michener

Two of the books have to be:

Mike Five Eight

Baggy Zero Four

The other Three are up in the air as their not on the Horizon yet although there is three books that I have read by Emmit Watson that should be on my list.

Skidrow - Story of Seattle's History and some of the characters that shaped it's early growth.

Northwest Passage - Same as Skidrow only it deals with settling of The Olympic Peninsula.

Puget's Sound - Deals with the settling of the Southern part of Puget Sound and the area between Olympia and Portland.

...well, how 'bout just adding a few instead of picking 5, to avoid overlap...

The God of the Machine - Isabel Paterson

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

My list does not include five books, just three, that everyone in the world should read.

Endurance by Alfred Lansing - tells the tale of Ernest Shackleton, his ship and crew on their Antarctic expedition. It clearly illustrates the value of good leadership, discipline and persistence in the face of overwhelming odds.

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield - This book is the most accurate account of the battle of Thermopolis between the Greeks lead by 300 Spartan warriors fighting against maybe a million Persion invaders. You want to know what courage and patriotism are all about. Read this book.

Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides - the biography of Kit Carson. His life was a continuous illustration of self reliance and courage.

BTW I give these books as gifts to people that I think might benefit from reading them.

I noticed that TLEE mentioned Atlast Shrugged by Ayn Rand - I second that suggestion because it offers a perspective that is relevant in today's incresingly socialist world.

KC

The Bible
Any title by Pat McManus
The other three should be anything that peaks a child's interest and makes him/her want to read.

atlas shrugged
rich dad poor dad
last of the mohicans
the total money makeover
no excuses- brian tracy

The Bible - User's manual for life here
Lone Survivor - Perspective check on what our fighters do
The Only Thing Worth Dying For - more military perspective
Designing and Forming Custom Cartridges - Absorbing a small measure of Ken Howell's knowledge
The Night the Bear ate Goombaw - Everyone needs a laugh. McManus rocks.
Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book - Big A, Little A, What begins with A? If you can answer that phrase you have spent time with your kids.

Animal Farm
Thus spoke Zarathustra
The Odyssey/Iliad
Wealth of Nations
Communist Manifesto
New testament

There are so many books that folks 'should' read, that limiting the number to 5 would be pointless.
I have been reading books, and a lot of them, for some 60 years now. A fairly good estimate would be some 15K books by now. I have not even started on those that I should/want/need to read.

Lonesome Dove
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
Of Mice and Men
The Old Man and the Sea

Italian War Heroes

Polish engineering

Blacks I've met while yachting