This is a list of books that I think are relevant for people interested in TTRPGs and wargaming that I have actually read and recommend. Alphabeterical by author. Work in progress.
Fiction
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
An all-time sci-fi classic, it is a good example of stringing together various short scenarios into a cohesive story.
“The High Crusade” by Poul Anderson
In addition to just being an awesome book, there’s no better place to start for encouraging people to start blurring the lines between genres. In this case, the blurring isn’t just that there are some fantasy elements and some sci-fi elements; the books is about medeival knights who travel in space.
- “Three Hearts and Three Lions” by Poul Anderson
- “Foundation Trilogy” by Isaac Asimov
- “The New Atlantis” by Francis Bacon
- “The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury
- “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan
- “A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burrows
- “Don Quixote” by Cervantes
- “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” by G.K. Chesterton
- “Casino Royale” by Ian Fleming
- “Brings the Lightning” by Peter Grant
- “Rocky Mountain Retribution” by Peter Grant
- “The Illiad” by Homer
- “The Odyssey” by Homer
- “Glory Road” by Robert Heinlein
- “Methuselah’s Children” by Robert Heinlein
- “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein
- “Dune” by Frank Herbert
- “Black Colossus” by Robert E. Howard
- “The Phoenix on the Sword” by Robert E. Howard
- “The Queen of the Black Coast” by Robert E. Howard
- “The Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E. Howard
- “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis
- “Ill Met in Lankhmar” by Fritz Leiber
- “The Jewels in the Forest” by Fritz Leiber
- “Thieves’ House” by Fritz Leiber
- “The Betrothed” by Alessandro Manzoni
- “Wilhelm Tell” by Fredrich Schiller
- “Henry IV Part II” by William Shakespeare
- “Henry V” by William Shakespeare
- “Henry VI Parts I, II, III” by William Shakespeare
- “Richard III” by William Shakespeare
- “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson
- “Legend of the Galactic Heroes” by Yoshiki Tanaka
- “The Children of Hurin” by JRR Tolkien
- “The Hobbit” by JRR Tolkien
- “The Lord of the Rings” by JRR Tolkien
- “The Silmarillion” by JRR Tolkien
- “Winds of Gath” by E.C. Tubbs
- “Aeneid” by Vergil
- “Beowulf”
- “Niblungied”
- “Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor”
- “The Story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”
- “Volsunga”
Non-Fiction
- “Military Memoirs of a Confederate” by General Edward Porter Alexander
- “Lost to the West” by Lars Brownworth
- “The Everlasting Man” by G.K. Chesterton
- “On War” by Carl von Clausewitz
- “Two Years Before the Mast” by Richard Henry Dana
- “The Voyage of the Beagle” by Charles Darwin
- “Autobiography” by Benjamin Franklin
- “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon
- “Persian Fire” by Tom Holland
- “In the Shadow of the Sword” by Tom Holland
- “Histories” by Herodotus
- “Voyages to Vinland” from Icelandic Sagas
- “Maneuver Warfare Handbook” by Michael Lind
- “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli
- “Lost in the Cosmos” by Walker Percy
- “Parallel Lives” by Plutarch
- “The Twelve Caesars” by Suetonius
- “The Discovery of Guiana” by Sir Walter Raleigh
- “Rough Riders” by Theodore Roosevelt
- “The History of the Peloponnesian War” by Thucydides
- “Account of His First Voyage” by Amerigo Vespucci
Books About Games
- “Appendix N” by Jeffro Johnson
- “How to Win at D&D” by Jeffro Johnson
- “Gamesmanship” by Stephen Potter