Gamemaster's Recommended Readings

My version of Appendix N: The following list contains books which may aid Gamesmasters in the creation of their worlds, and the adventures thereof... For this list I've only included those that I have personally read and recommend. Note - I will be adding to this list from time to time.
Last Updated: 1/26/2023

    
Adventure, Fantasy & Science Fiction
    The Hobbit, JR Tolkien
    Lord of the Rings, JR Tolkien
    The Silmarillion, JR Tolkien
    Farmer Giles of Ham, JR Tolkien
    The Narnia Chronicles, CS Lewis
    Conan Series, Robert Howard
    Solomon Kane Series, Robert Howard
    Tarzan Series, Edgar Rice Boroughs
    Lensman Series, E. Smith
    A Wrinkle in Time Series, Madeleine L'Engle
    The Dragon and the Unicorn Series, A. A. Attanasio
    Sabriel Series, Garth Nix
    The High King Series, Lloyd Alexander
    Mossflower, Brian Jacques
    Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
    The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke
    Elric of Melniboné Series, Michael Moorcock
    Vril, The Power of the the Coming Race, Edward Bulwer-Lytton

    
Medieval Romance & Adventure Stories
    Arthurian Romances, Chretien de Troyes
    The Faerie Queen, Edmund Spenser
    Sir Gwaine and the Green Knight
    Tales of King Arther, Sir Thomas Malory
    Tristan and Isolde, Strassburg
    The Song of Roland
    Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson
    The Quest of the Holy Grail, Walter Map [Mattarasso]
    The Death of King Arthur, Walter Map
    The Pearl, (rare - difficult to find)
    The Lady of the Lake, Sir Walter Scott
    The Travels, Marco Polo
    The Laxdaela Saga
    Parzival, W.V. Eschenbach
    Willehalm, W.V. Eschenbach
    The Nibilungenlied
    The Mabinogion
    Beowulf

    
Fairy Tales & Folktales
    Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson
    Folk Tales, The Brothers Grim
    Irish Fairy Tales, Jeremiah Curtin
    The Complete Fairy Tales, George MacDonald
    The Yellow Fairy Tale Book, Andrew Lang
    The World's Great Folktales, James Forster (Editor)
    Danish Fairy Tales, Inge Hack

    
Gothic & Horror
    Castle of Oranto, Horace Walpole
    Dracula, Bram Stoker
    Frankenstien, Mary Shelly
    Vathek, William Beckford
    The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
    Perlandria Series, C. S. Lewis
    Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe
    Stories by Lovecraft
    The Greater Trumps, Charles Williams
    The Place of the Lion, Charles Williams
    The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddiison
    Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories, Algernon Blackwood

    
Mythology
    
Norse
    The Norse Myths, Kevin Crossley-Holland
    Saga of the Volsungs, Jesse L. Byock
    Egil's Saga, Paul Edwards
    Prose Edda, Jean I. Young

    
Greek
    Illiad, Homer
    Odyssey, Homer

    
Egyptian
    The Hermetica; The Lost Wisdom of the Pharohs, Timothy Freke & Peter Candy

    
Summerian
    Mythologies of the Ancient World, S. Kramer
    Myths from Mesopotamia, Stephanie Dalley
    Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Meopotamia, N.K. Sandars
    Sumerian Mythology, S. Kramer
    The Sumerians, S. Kramer
    Inanna; Queen of Heavan and Earth, S. Kramer

    
Chinese
    Journey To the West
    Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, Pu Songling

    
Poetry, Plays and Fables
    The Aeneid, Virgil
    La Vita Nova, Dante
    Lysistrata, Aristophanes
    The Clouds, Aristophanes
    The Wasps, Aristophanes
    The Poet and the Woman, Aristophanes
    The Frogs, Aristophanes
    Metamorphosis, Ovid
    Fables of Aesop
    The Works of Sir Walter Scott

    
Judeo-Christian Literature of Old
    The Holy Bible [King James]
    Paradise Lost, Milton
    Divine Comedy, Dante
    Piers the Ploughman, William Langland
    Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross
    The Ladder of Perfection, Walter Hilton
    The City of God, Augustine
    The Fathers of the Church; Homilies on Leviticus, Origen
    Confessions, Saint Augustine
    Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede
    The Guide for the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides

    
Classical History
    
Greek
      
    The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
    The Histories, Herodotus

    
Roman
    Germanicus, Tacitus
    Lives, Plutarch
    The Age of Alexander, Plutarch
    The Early History of Rome, Livy
    Rome and the Mediterranean, Livy
    The War with Hannibal, Livy
    The Rise of the Roman Empire, Polybius

    
Medieval
    The History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth
    The Travels, Marco Polo

    
Ancient Transcripts
    
Sumerian
    The Epic of Gilgamesh

    
Egyptian
      
    The Hermetica, Timothy Freke
    Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt, Gaston Maspero

    
Hindu
      
    Shrimad Bhagamatam (Volumes 1-14)
    Dharmapada
    Bhagavad Gita

    
Chinese
    Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu
    The Art of War, Sun Tzu
    The Book of Five Rings, Musashi
    The I Ching; The Book of Chnages, King Wen, Trans. Brian Browne Walker
    The Three Kingdoms

    
Political Theory & Philosophy
    
Classical Greek
      
    The Republic, Plato
    The Laws, Plato
    The Symposium, Plato
    The Meno, Plato
    The Crito, Plato
    Euthyphro, Plato
    Apology, Plato
    Phaedo, Plato
    The Politics, Aristotle
    Metaphysics, Aristotle
    Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle

    
Post-Medieval European & American
      
    The New Atlantis, Francis Bacon
    The Prince, Machiavelli
    On History, Kant
    Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche
    Selected Essays, Emerson (On Nature)
    The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hess
    History of Political Philosophy, Leo Strauss & Joseph Cropsey
    Thoughts on Machiavelli, Leo Strauss
    Introduction to the Reading of Hegel; Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, Alexandre Kojeve
    Love of Glory and the Common Good; Aspects of the Political Thought of Thucydides, Michael Palmer

    
Research Resources
    Warefare in the Classical World, John Warry
    A field Guild to the LIttle People, Nancy Arrowsmith
    The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, E & M Radford
    The World Guide to Gnomes, Faries, Elves and other Little People, Thomas Keightley
    The Ancient Engineers, De Camp
    Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scorpion Bombs; Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World, Adrienne Mayor