Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

As I read through Mike S. Adams: A reading list for high school seniors, I began thinking of what my own list would be. I’ve read too many books to really put together a list of ten without leaving out something really important, so I limited the list to five which I think are of significant stature.

Professor Adams puts his focus on religious education for students about to enter college. I think mine would be more likely to address more secular issues, although they are not more important.

1. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. To me, this is the single most important volume on society and culture. Twain covers it all: religion, government, economics, culture, slavery, and education. Twain is the best observer of human nature, and his writing is entrancing.

2. The Federalist Papers by James Madison, Father of the Constitution; Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury and only New York delegate to the Convention to sign the Constitution; John Jay, the first Chief justice of the Supreme Court. What else need be said?

3. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. A young Frenchman visits the US early in the 19th century and pens his perspective on the character of America.

4. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Nobel Prize-winning author describes life under a totalitarian regime. There are three volumes, but the first is the most enlightening.

5. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is not just a reference book for speakers and writers to glean “support” for their topic. Reading this cover-to-cover can be a tremendous education, following the differences and similarities in thought through written history.

There–a short list, although every one of these is substantial. Every one is valuable in ways that will, in my ever-so-humble opinion, help any student along the way to independent thought as he enters college.