The January 2026 revision of the Marines reading list.

(source) The Marine Corps Professional Reading Program Began as the Commandant's Reading List in 1988, although recommended reading lists have been generated for Marines since the 19th century. Each Commandant since 1988 has placed his personal stamp on the program, but many of the books have remained constant.

From https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/cmc-reading-list

Other revisions

May 2017

March 2016

January 2013

September 2009

November 2008

This revision

Foundational

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 6-10A) Sustaining the Transformation

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 6-10) Leading Marines

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 7) Learning

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 3) Expeditionary Operations

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 2) Intelligence

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 1-4) Competing

Book cover for Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP 1) Warfighting

Book cover for The Constitution of the United States of America

Strategy

Book cover for The Russian Way of Deterrence: Strategic Culture, Coercion, and War

Book cover for The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order

Book cover for Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations, Third Edition

Book cover for Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine

Book cover for Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders

Book cover for Speed Kills: Leveraging John Boyd's OODA Loop to Build Organizations That Win

Book cover for On Grand Strategy

Book cover for The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age

Book cover for Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War

Book cover for The Generals' War : The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf

Book cover for Legacy: What The All Blacks Can Teach Us About The Business Of Life

Book cover for The Infinite Game

Book cover for Ender's Game

Book cover for The Defense Of Duffer's Drift

Book cover for The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students

Leadership

Book cover for Risk: A User's Guide

Risk: A User's Guide

General Stanley McChrystal and Anna Butrico

View on Amazon.com | I've read this book

Book cover for Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay

Book cover for Five Generations at Work: How We Win Together, For Good

Book cover for Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Book cover for Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead

Book cover for The Yompers: 45 Commando in the Falklands War

Book cover for Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Book cover for Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual

Book cover for Greatest U.S. Marine Corps Stories Ever Told: Unforgettable Stories Of Courage, Honor, And Sacrifice

Book cover for Generals and Admirals, Criminals and Crooks: Dishonorable Leadership in the U.S. Military

Book cover for You Are Worth It: Building a Life Worth Fighting For

Book cover for The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple

Book cover for The White Donkey: Terminal Lance

Book cover for On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

Book cover for Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World

Innovation

Book cover for Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life

Book cover for Generative AI for Leaders

Book cover for The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Book cover for Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI

Book cover for Arms of the Future, The: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century

Book cover for Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

Book cover for The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers

Book cover for Next War: Reimagining How We Fight

Book cover for 7 Seconds to Die: A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting

Book cover for Playing War: Wargaming and U.S. Navy Preparations for World War II

Book cover for Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal

Book cover for Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945

Book cover for A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II

Heritage

Book cover for Targeted: Beirut: The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War on Terror

Book cover for Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of US Marines in Iraq's Deadliest City

Book cover for Corps Competency?: III Marine Amphibious Force Headquarters in Vietnam

Book cover for The American War in Afghanistan: A History

Book cover for Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII

Book cover for The Marines of Montford Point: America's First Black Marines

Book cover for This Kind of War

Book cover for Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima

Book cover for With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

Book cover for LeJeune: A Marine's Life, 1867-1942

Book cover for How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874-1918

Book cover for First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps

Commandant's Choice

Book cover for Once An Eagle