An Interior Life: Summer Book Recommendations

In a recent newsletter to supporters, I wrote about Rear Admiral James Goldrick AO CSC RANR—a mentor to me during my military career and a friend now in politics—who gave me a piece of advice which has served me well in the army and now as an MP.

He encouraged me to build an interior intellectual life sustained by wide reading, writing and critical thinking.

Reading challenges us. It encourages us. It stretches us. And it gives perspective.

I shared some of the books I have on my summer reading list and asked you to send me your recommendations.

The response was overwhelming.

There were so many good books—hundreds in fact—that it would take years for me to read them!

So I've decided to share the top 100 most recommended books with everyone.

There are some in here I've read, which I'm happy to also recommend.

Here's hoping you can relax over the new year with one of these excellent books.

Andrew Hastie 
Your Federal Member for Canning

12 Rules for Life — Jordan Peterson
2062: The World That AI Made — Made Toby Walsh
A Beggar in Jerusalem — Elie Wiesel
A City Mismanaged: Hong Kong’s Struggle for Survival —  Leo Goodstadt
A Fortunate Life — Albert B. Facey
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples — Sir Winston S. Churchill
A History of the Sikhs — Khushwant Singh
Act of Oblivion — Robert Harris
Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-1989 — Sir Rodric Braithwaite
American Marxism — Mark Levin
Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All — Michael Shellenberger
Australia’s Secret Army — Michael Veitch
Badness: The Evil That We Cannot Understand — Gary Jubelin
Batavia — Peter FitzSimons
Beating the French to Botany Bay: The Race to Found Australia — Margaret Cameron-Ash
Behind Enemy lines with the SAS: The Story of Amdee Maingard - SOE Agent — Paul McCue
Both Sides of the Wire: The Memoir of an Australian Officer Captured During the Great War — William Cull
Chickenhawk — Robert Mason
Churchill: A Life — Martin Gilbert
Cruel and Usual Punishment — Nonie Darwish
Danger on our Doorstep — Jim Molan
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery — Henry Marsh
Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind — Tom Holland
Eleven Bats: A Story of Combat, Cricket and the SAS — Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt
Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World — Michelle Scott Tucker
Englanders and Huns — James Hawes
Escape from Freedom — Erich Fromm 
Faith and Duty: The John Anderson Story — Paul Gallagher
For the Term of His Natural Life — Marcus Clarke
For Whom the Bell Tolls — Ernest Hemingway
Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? — Timothy Keller
Four Quartets — T. S. Eliot
Gallipoli — Les Carlyon
Gates of Fire — Stephen Pressfield 
General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman — Ed Cray
Gone with the Wind — Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Hades — Candice Fox
Hidden Courage: My Life as a Female Australian Soldier — Donna Bourke
Hiroshima — John Hersey
Hudson Fysh — Grantlee Kieza
I, Claudius — Robert Graves
Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth — Noa Tishby
Jack Ryan (series) — Tom Clancy
Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis — George Sayer
Jonathan Livingston Seagull — Richard Bach
Kings In Grass Castles — Mary Durack
Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy — Henry Kissinger
Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents — Rod Dreher
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time — Dava Sobel
Lord of the Rings — J. R. R. Tolkien
Master and Commander — Patrick O'Brian
Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell — Jason L. Riley
Monash & Chauvel: How Australia's Two Greatest Generals Changed the Course of World History — Roland Perry
Nature is Your Guide: How to Find Your Way on Land and Sea by Observing Nature — Harold Gatty
No Plan B — Andrew Grant and Lee Child
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich — Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
Paratrooper: The Life of Gen. James M. Gavin — Duncan Spencer and Thomas Michael Booth
Pillars of the Earth — Ken Follett
Prairie Fires — Caroline Fraser
Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey — David Horowitz
Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch — David Mamet
Red Zone: China’s Challenge and Australia’s Future —  Peter Hartcher
Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921 — Antony Beevor
Sarum — Edward Rutherfurd
Shackleton's Boat Journey Frank A. Worsley
Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia — Clive Hamilton
Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World — Alex Joske
Stalin —  Steven Kotkin
Street Without Joy — Bernard B. Fall
Survival in the Killing Fields —  Haing S. Ngor
The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West — Karl-Heinz Frieser
The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 and The War Against the Human — Naomi Wolf
The Bonfire of the Vanities — Tom Wolfe
The Choice: Embrace the Possible — Dr Edith Eva Eger
The Coddling of the American Mind:  How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure —  Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
The Death of Napoleon — Simon Leys
The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri
The English and Their History — Robert Tombs
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding — Robert Hughes
The Forgotten Soldier — Guy Sajer
The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck
The Last British Dambuster: One Man's Extraordinary Life and the Raid That Changed History — George 'Johnny' Johnson
The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984 — Dorian Lynskey
The Odyssey — Homer
The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West — David McCullough
The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith — Peter Hitchens
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany — William L. Shirer
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self — Carl R. Trueman
The Road to Serfdom — Friedrich Hayek
The Strength of Hope: A Holocaust Survivor's Guide to Love and Life — Abram Goldberg
The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great Power Rivalry Today — Hal Brands
The War on the West: How To Prevail in the Age of Unreason — Douglas Murray
Trinity — Leon Uris
Trump: The Art of The Deal  Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz
Wagner and Tolkien: Mythmakers — Renée Vink
Walden — Henry David Thoreau
War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy
Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982 — Dominic Sandbrook