Governor Scranton’s Reading List
September 30, 2014
42 Great Books From A Life Well Read
Former Governor William W. Scranton was a reader. No matter where his career took him – the State Department, Congress, the Governor’s Mansion or the United Nations – he remained a student at heart, and considered books his most important possessions.
In an interview he once said, “”Most people in the world are interested in learning, in being educated, in broadening their lives, and that’s what books do. They help us to understand other people, to understand other worlds, to understand other lives.”
Some years ago the former governor shared a list of his favorite books with his friend and fellow reader James W. Reid, recently named the “William W. Scranton Library Laureate” by the Lackawanna County Library System. Reid thought that the list should be shared with world.
Here, then, is a list of the 42 books that Bill Scranton loved most.
The Canadians, Andrew Malcolm
Breaking with Moscow, Arkady Shevchenko
The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor
The Caravaggio Conspiracy, Peter Watson
Of America East and West, Paul Horgan
Growing Up, Russell Baker
In the Land of Israel, Amos Oz
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, Jonathan D. Spence
The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin
At Ease, Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Russians, Hedrick Smith
The Japanese, Edwin O. Reischauer
The Gate of Heavenly Peace, Jonathan D. Spence
The Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers
Jerusalem, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
The Israelis: Founders and Sons, Amos Elon
The Path Between The Seas, David McCullough
Old Glory: An American Voyage, Jonathan Raban
West With the Night, Beryl Markham and Sara Wheeler
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945, John Toland
Freedom At Midnight, Larry Collins Dominique Lapierre
Villages, John Updike
American Caesar, By William Manchester
A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan
Everything We Had, Al Santoli
The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk
The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn
Miracle At Philadelphia, Katherine Drinker Bowen
Coming Into The Country, John Mcphee
In Search Of History, Theodore White
The Last 100 Days, John Toland
Is Paris Burning, Larry Collins Dominique Lapierre
A Bell For Adano, John Hersey
The Long Ships, Frans Gunnar Bengtsson
Storm Warning, Jack Higgins
The Great Himalayan Passage, Michel Peissel
Eye Of The Needle, Ken Follett
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Day Of Trinity, Lansing Lamont
Adventures Of A Bystander, Peter Drucker
The Italians, Luigi Barzini
