Cadets: don't know what to do with your summer vacation?

[dwb]

Read a book.

Reading stimulates your mind, it makes you think about things you wouldn't otherwise think about, or think in ways you don't normally think.  Reading requires concentration and focus.  Turn off the TV, the iPod, the cell phone, and the Xbox, and curl up on a quiet summer night with a good book.

What's the big deal?  Only 43 percent of 18-to-24 year olds had read any literature in 2002, down from 53 percent in 1992.  Nationwide, only about 57 percent of all Americans had read a book that year, with less than half (47 percent) reading a work of fiction (source).  A free society that does not take lifelong learning seriously is not going to stay a free society.  The liberty you take for granted is just as much threatened by a willfully ignorant public as it is by enemies abroad.

Short on cash?  Library cards are usually free, or have only a nominal fee.  I still get most of my books from the public library, or hand-me-down from my dad.

Don't know where to start?  Alternate between fiction and non-fiction, until you decide which kinds of books you like to read most.  I generally go for a mix of biographies, history, contemporary issues, and fiction.

Not sure what to read?  Book club or bestseller lists can be daunting, so here's a very small list to get you started.  Pick one and go.

• Leadership: It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best [darn] Ship in the Navy, by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
  
• Aerospace:  Unlocking the Sky: Glenn Hammond Curtiss and the Race to Invent the Airplane, by Seth Shulman
  
• General Non-fiction: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond
  
• Contemporary Fiction: Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
  
• Slightly Older Fiction: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
  
  

Enough excuses.  Pick up a book and read.

(For those wondering, I am currently reading Windy City: A Novel of Politics by Scott Simon)

[proveritas]

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.

(Ok, so it's required for my summer lit class. At least I'm reading *something* though. )

Brodsky has a good point though: getting through at least one book every summer will help keep your mind sharp! You don't use it, you lose it.

[Eclipse]

Ah, reading...its taken me to so many places.

Some suggestions (books on my multiple read list).

Of course the ubiquitous:
Ender's Game / Ender's Shadow (not as big a fan of the rest of the series)
Starship Troopers
Band Of Brothers


Catcher in the Rye
Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (whole series)
Brave New world
1984
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Devil in the White City
Neverwhere
Neuromancer



(available free from Corey Doctorow's website craphound.com, his stuff is great)
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Little Brother

You may also be surprised what is available free on the web, checkout memoware.com for thousands of titles.
I am a big fan of ebooks, and read almost everything on my MDA (which is currently dead thanks to a swim this last weekend) and my tablet.

eReader.com and fictionwise.com have current bestsellers you can read online, or in any number of different electronic formats.  I love having my library in my pocket.

[mprokosch11]

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

[mikeylikey]

Or if you prefer, Reading Rainbow is on PBS twice a day.  Start there, and move on to grownup books.

I highly reccomend "George Washington's Secret War", "The founding and failure of a Republic", Why aren't We all Romans", "Lies my teacher told me", "I hope there is Beer in Hell" (for the older crowd, 14+), and "I am America and So Can You" 

[Cecil DP]

Baen Books has Free downloads of many of their  Sci-Fi books for free download. Including works by David Weber, John Ringo, Lois Bujold, and many others.

http://www.baen.com/library/

[mikeylikey]

"ColonelJack" is floating around here somewhere.  He is a Sci-Fi author! 

Check his blog and book pages out.

[JROB]

Leadership> So You Want to Be a Leader?: Advice and Counsel to Young Leaders
by Colonel James Benson Sr, Sr. Benson USMC (ret.)

[afgeo4]

The One Minute Manager is one of the best books I've ever read and is a great leadership tool.

[DC]

• Leadership: It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best [darn] Ship in the Navy, by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
  

Awesome freaking book, I highly reccomend it to everyone who has any sort of leadership responsibility. It is practically required reading for all the Cadet Officers in my squadron. I'm currently working on Its Our Ship, the, for lack of a better word, sequel to Its Your Ship. He also has another book called Get Your Ship Together.

Ender's Game / Ender's Shadow (not as big a fan of the rest of the series)

I read Ender's Game a while back. The book was great, but I really wasn't impressed with the end. I'd still reccomend it though.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

I'm having to read that now for English III

My contributions:

Black Hawk Down by Michael Bowden

We Were Soldiers Once... And Young by Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway

Marine Sniper or Silent Warrior by Charles Hendersen

All are excellent books to read from a pure enjoyment prospective, as well as being non-fictional accounts of two important events in US military history, and the biography of one of the most famous Marine Scout/Snipers of Vietnam.

The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Possibly the best fantasy series. Ever.

I also happen to like Tom Clancy's Ryanverse novels. Some of the later ones aren't terribly great, but just about anything he wrote in the 80's and early 90's is pretty good. My favorite is a tie between Red Storm Rising (which is not Ryanverse, incidentally) and The Sum of All Fears. The movie adaptations of all the books suck too, the books are much better!

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Chricton
Jurrasic Park and The Lost World by Michael Chricton
Sphere by Michael Chricton

Tin Soldiers by Michael Farmer

I could go on for a while, I really like to read...

[Psicorp]

My problem with the library is that they expect you to bring the books back! 

Thank you all, I've added a few more for my next run to the bookstore.

a short list of authors:

David Weber (the Honor Harrington series)
Jim Butcher (the Dresden Files)
Kim Harrison
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
William Gibson (godfather of cyberpunk)
James Doohan (the Flight Engineer series)
Michael Collins ("Carrying the Fire" - great aerospace book)
Stephen Hawking ("A Brief History of Time" and "Universe in a Nutshell")
Colonel James Kyle ("the Guts to Try" - Iranian Hostage rescue attempt story)

[ColonelJack]

Modesty prevents me from mentioning my own two novels out there, but maybe someone else in here could do that.   

Jack

[addo1]

Modesty prevents me from mentioning my own two novels out there, but maybe someone else in here could do that.   

Jack

Or just click on the link on his signature, lol... 

[addo1]

  Something like Apprentice Cruise and The Things We Leave Behind.  *Cough* Did I just say something? 

[Johnny Yuma]

Under the Black Flag by Cordingly is also one of the best references for historical piracy known.

And don't forget Geoffrey Abbott's rack, rope and red hot pincers, the read on European torture methods striaght from the Tower of London.

I'm currently finishing Murder in Little Egypt by Darcy O'Brien, a book about Dr. Dale Cavaness and the murder of his 2 sons.

Once I'm done with that, Preserving the Dead: The Art and Science of Embalming by Abigail Johnson Dodge is next. My foreman at work just finished it.

[ColonelJack]

"ColonelJack" is floating around here somewhere.  He is a Sci-Fi author! 

Check his blog and book pages out.

Thanks, Mikey!  (I'd posted my not-so-subtle hint before I read all of the posts in here and didn't notice until now that you'd done what I hinted at.)

Yeah, visit my blog too.   

Jack

[ColonelJack]

  Something like Apprentice Cruise and The Things We Leave Behind.  *Cough* Did I just say something? 

Bless you, Cadet!!!

Jack

[♠SARKID♠]

Currently reading Grouch Marx and Other Short Stories and Tall Tales.

My recommendations:

FICTION - Myst (like the computer game), American Gods, Anansi Boys, Good Omens, the Battlemech series, Hitchiker's Guide
NON FICTION - Faith of My Fathers, Day of Infamy, Band of Brothers
AUTO BIOGRAPHY - Satchmo (Louis Armstrong), Groucho and Me (Groucho Marx)

Two tips
1) If its written by Neil Gaiman, you can't go wrong.
2) Avoid Catcher in the Rye, that is unless you like nonsensical whiny teen angst.

[cferron]

How about "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane?  A *totally* different look at the space program!

[dwb]

Once I'm done with that, Preserving the Dead: The Art and Science of Embalming by Abigail Johnson Dodge is next. My foreman at work just finished it.

If you like that, you may like Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach.  I really enjoyed that book, and I'll probably add the embalming one to my list.

I finished Windy City last night (good book), and I'm waiting for an inter-library loan to arrive -- Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death, by Jessica Snyder Sachs.

[DC]

How about "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane?  A *totally* different look at the space program!

For the space program, or at least Project Mercury, you cannot pass up The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.

[proveritas]

I also happen to like Tom Clancy's Ryanverse novels. Some of the later ones aren't terribly great, but just about anything he wrote in the 80's and early 90's is pretty good. My favorite is a tie between Red Storm Rising (which is not Ryanverse, incidentally) and The Sum of All Fears. The movie adaptations of all the books suck too, the books are much better!

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Chricton
Jurrasic Park and The Lost World by Michael Chricton
Sphere by Michael Chricton

:clap: A bookworm after mine own heart! I loved Timeline by Critchton also. (I'm *especially* partial to Red Storm Rising though, 'cause I stayed in the immediate vicinity of NASKEF a couple of years ago. Interesting place. The theater stinks though.)

Another book you all may really enjoy if you're into history is John Adams by McCullough. HBO just made it into a miniseries, which we just started, and I can't wait to get into the book. 

Second that on Lies My Teacher Told Me -- you will NEVER look at history the same way again! Along the same lines, 1491 is another great expose on all the pre-Columbus pablum you get pushed on you in history class. Your history teacher will hate you.

[dwb]

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

That was probably my favorite book I was forced to read in high school.

In college, it was probably Native Son, by Richard A. Wright.  That was a great book.

[DC]

How about "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane?  A *totally* different look at the space program!

For the space program, or at least Project Mercury, you cannot pass up The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.

I also recently read Scott Carpenter's autobiography, For Spacious Skies. It was pretty good, decently written and interesting. His flight (Aurora 7, fourth manned Mercury flight) is frequently criticized, it was neat to see his prospective.