Boys to Men: A Book List
This list was born out of the list I curated last week, it's just taken me some time to get my act together and publish this one. This is, as all my lists are, a crowd-sourced list. I posted the question on social media, and took the recommended books to create the list. It's far better than I could make on my own. It's also fascinating to see which books people thought of first, or insisted had to be added because they loved them so. Also interesting was something that hadn't happened before - the list got a troll. Usually, when I ask for book suggestions I get overwhelmed in readers who love books and are more than happy to give me titles and authors they want others to enjoy, too. This time we got an author who was petulant their books weren't being suggested for this list, and offended that not all reader's tastes matched their own.
How odd. But really, that's what this list is about. This is a list for boys from young to old, to help them become better men as they grow. Honor, duty, compassion, empathy... all things that are proven to be found in the pages of a good book by an earnest reader. And of course, this isn't just for boys. I read many of these titles as a girl, but the list is intended to help develop the masculine virtues in the growing boy.
Enjoy! And as always, feel free to add suggestions of books we managed to miss in the comments.
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein Huck Finn by Mark Twain Pre-1975 Boy Scout Handbook Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling The Way Things Work (Vol 1 and 2) Iliad by Homer Odyssey by Homer The Ear the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card The Bible Gilgamesh Aaron in the Wildwood by Joel Chandler Harris Campfire Cooking Tulku by Peter Dickingson As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins Summerland by Michael Chabon The Mouse and His Child by Russel Hoban A History of Weapons by John O'Bryan Making Things Grow Outdoors by Thalassa Cruso The Worst-Case Survival Handbook by J Piven & D Borgenicht The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome Ivanhoe by Walter Scott A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill Man Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein Nevada by Zane Grey John Carter of Mars by ER Burroughs King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson The Man without a Country by Edward Everett Hale Sherlock Holmes by A Conan Doyle