The Rapa Nui Reading List

Reading lists are making the rounds in my little corner of the blogosphere: there’s one just downstream in this journal, and has an interesting genre reading list with a lot of fine titles. usually posts an interesting and eclectic monthly reading list, along with thumbnail reviews.
At a recent writer’s workshop, we were talking about books on war—which ones were worthwhile and which ones weren’t—and I made my own short list of the good ones (hence that topic’s preeminent position below). While I was at it, I added a few more books that have moved me, educated me or entertained me over the years. I make no claim that these are indispensable books, or great books, merely that they left a lasting impression on me, and that I was amply repaid for the time I’d invested in them. Maybe you’ll find them worth a read, too.

WAR
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War by Paul Fussell; World War II (Nonfiction)
Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial by Richard J. Evans; World War II (Nonfiction)
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo; Vietnam (Nonfiction)
Generation Kill by Evan Wright; Iraq (Nonfiction)
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden; Somalia (Nonfiction)
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk; World War II (Novel)

DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS
Looking for a Ship by John McPhee (Nonfiction)
Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter by Christopher Buckley (Novel)

THE GOLDEN WEST
Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell (Nonfiction)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Novel)
The American West by Dee Brown (Nonfiction)
Sacagawea’s Nickname: Essays on the American West by Larry McMurtry (Nonfiction)

NATURE, SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (Memoir)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (Nonfiction)
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen (Nonfiction)
Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science by David Quammen (Nonfiction)
Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande (Nonfiction)
A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student by Perri Klass (Nonfiction)
The Curve of Binding Energy by John McPhee (Nonfiction)

FICTION I WISH I’D WRITTEN
Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx (Collection)
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (Novel)
Watership Down by Richard Adams (Novel)
Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll (Novel)
Cowboys are My Weakness by Pam Houston (Collection)
Night in Funland and Other Stories from Literary Cavalcade Jerome Brondfield, Ed. (Anthology)
Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen (Novel)
Heaven’s Prisoners by James Lee Burke (Novel)