Generals book series in reading order

John Buchan

84 books• 4 series

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (26 August 1875 to 11 February 1940), was a Scottish novelist, historian, army officer and Unionist politician who served as the 15th Governor General of Canada. Buchan published a first novel in 1895, the year of Sir Quixote of the Moors, the earliest catalogued title, and went on to write more than a hundred books, The Thirty-Nine Steps the best known among them. Series include Richard Hannay, the Leithen Stories and Dickson McCunn. Buchan studied at Glasgow and Oxford, practised as a barrister, and in 1901 was private secretary to Lord Milner in southern Africa near the end of the Boer War. Subjects include the First World War, the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, the intelligence service and Scotland.

Who HQ is the credit on 429 children's nonfiction biographies in the catalogue, published from 2002 to 2026. The run opens with Who Was Albert Einstein?, Who Was Amelia Earhart? and Who Was Ben Franklin? (all 2002) and reaches Who Is Vera Wang (2026). Subjects include biography, history and juvenile nonfiction for readers aged 8 to 12. Other names credited on some of the books include Megan Stine (7), John Hinderliter (7) and Nico Medina (4).

Adrian Goldsworthy

32 books• 6 series

Adrian Goldsworthy is a British historian and novelist, born in 1969, who specialises in the history of ancient Rome. The catalogue holds 32 books from The Roman Army At War (1996) to Athens and Sparta (2026). Titles include The Punic Wars (2000), Caesar's Civil War (2002), Caesar (2006) and Cannae (2007). Series listed for Goldsworthy are Napoleonic Wars, Vindolanda and City Of Victory, and subjects cover the Roman army, the Punic Wars and the Peninsular War of 1807 to 1814.

Conn Iggulden writes historical fiction about empires and wars: the Emperor books on Rome, the Conqueror series around Genghis Khan, the Wars of the Roses, the Athenian novels and a Nero trilogy. The Gates of Rome (2002) opens a catalogue of 42 books reaching Inferno in 2026, and The Dangerous Book for Boys (2006) heads the non-fiction. The Empire of Salt fantasy appeared under the name C.F. Iggulden.

Jeff Shaara writes historical war fiction, and the 21 catalogued books cover the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II and the Korean War. Gods and Generals (1996) opens the list, followed by The Last Full Measure (1998) and Gone for Soldiers (2000). Series lines group the novels by conflict, among them World War II: 1939-1945 and Civil War: 1861-1865, Western Theater. The Unfinished Work of Abraham Lincoln (2026) is the newest title. Born Jeffrey M. Shaara on February 21, 1952, Shaara is the son of the Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Shaara.

Victor Davis Hanson

30 books• 3 series

Military history and classical Greece run through the 30 catalogued books of Victor Davis Hanson, an American classicist, military historian and conservative political commentator born September 5, 1953. The Western Way of War (1989) comes first, followed by Hoplites (1991), The Other Greeks (1995), Fields Without Dreams (1996), Who Killed Homer (1998) and Carnage and Culture (2001); The Counterrevolution (2026) is the newest. Hanson is professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a visiting professor at Hillsdale College. Hanson received the National Humanities Medal in 2007, and agriculture and family farms also appear among the subjects.

Harry Turtledove

141 books• 28 series

Harry Turtledove, born June 14, 1949, is an American historian and novelist of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction and mystery, based in Southern California. The catalogue counts 142 books, starting with Wereblood and Werenight (1979), published as Eric G. Iverson, and listing The Succulent Succubus for 2027. Other pen names are H. N. Turteltaub, Dan Chernenko and Mark Gordian. The Videssos Cycle, Southern Victory / Timeline-191, Worldwar, Colonization, Crosstime Traffic, The War That Came Early and Gerin the Fox are among the series. World War II and the American Civil War are frequent subjects.

Paul Doherty writes historical mysteries set largely in England, with 127 books catalogued from The Death of a King (1985) to The Meadows of Murder (2026). Recurring detectives include Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan, Kathryn Swinbrooke and Amerotke. Other series cover the Canterbury Tales Mysteries, Ancient Rome, Egyptian Mysteries, Nicholas Segalla, Mathilde of Westminster, Margaret Beaufort and Vlad Drakulya. Satan in St Mary's (1986) and Spy in Chancery (1988) are among the early titles.

Colleen McCullough

24 books• 2 series

Colleen McCullough was an Australian novelist, born in 1937 and died in 2015, who trained as a neurophysiologist before publishing fiction. Her 24 catalogued books span 1974 to 2013, opening with Tim, written while McCullough worked as a research assistant at the Yale School of Medicine, and closing with Bittersweet. The Thorn Birds (1977) sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was adapted as a television miniseries. Masters of Rome is her Roman historical sequence, from The First Man in Rome (1990); Carmine Delmonico is her detective. The catalogue is likely complete.

Steven Pressfield

23 books

Steven Pressfield writes historical fiction and nonfiction. The catalogue opens with The Legend of Bagger Vance (1995), a novel about golfers, and runs to 23 books through 2026. The fiction takes in the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC, the Second World War and military history generally, across titles such as Gates of Fire (1998), The Virtues of War (2004) and Killing Rommel (2008). The nonfiction turns to creative work and the resistance that blocks it, in The War of Art (2002) and Do the Work (2011).

Mary Renault

17 books• 2 series

Mary Renault was the pen name of Eileen Mary Challans, a British novelist best known for historical fiction set in ancient Greece. Renault studied at St Hugh's College, Oxford, worked as a nurse and began with contemporary romances such as Purposes of Love (1939). The ancient-Greek novels followed, among them The Last of the Wine (1956) and The King Must Die (1958), which opens the Theseus series. A move to South Africa in 1948 with her partner, Julie Mullard, let Renault write openly gay characters away from English censorship. The Alexander the Great novels close the 17-title catalogue at Funeral Games (1981).

Daniel Abraham

17 books• 5 series

Daniel Abraham (Daniel James Abraham, born November 14, 1969) is an American novelist, comic book writer, screenwriter and television producer who also writes as M. L. N. Hanover and, with Ty Franck, as James S. A. Corey. The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin are fantasy series, and The Expanse, co-written with Franck, became a television series (2015 to 2022). A Shadow in Summer (2006) is the first of 18 catalogued books. Kithamar is another series, and Judge of Worlds is due in 2027.

William Shakespeare

49 books• 5 series

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor, born around 23 April 1564 and died on 23 April 1616. Shakespeare is widely ranked as the greatest writer in English and the leading dramatist in the world, and is called England's national poet and the Bard of Avon. The surviving works, collaborations included, number about 39 plays, 154 sonnets and 3 long narrative poems. The plays exist in every major living language and are staged more often than those of any other playwright. The catalogue sorts the plays into Comedy Plays, Tragedy Plays and History Plays, with titles such as King John, Richard II, Henry V, The Tempest and The Comedy of Errors.

H.W. Brands writes history and biography centred on American presidents, the Cold War and United States foreign relations. The catalogue lists 48 books from Cold Warriors (1988) to American Patriarch (2026), and includes the series Foreign Relations and the Presidency. Early titles are India and the United States, The Specter of Neutralism, Inside the Cold War, Bound to Empire, The Devil We Knew and The Reckless Decade. Brands is still publishing.