International relations book series in reading order

by David Baldacci

by Charles Cumming

Noam Chomsky

134 books• 4 series

Noam Chomsky (Avram Noam Chomsky, born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist and social critic, sometimes called the father of modern linguistics. Chomsky helped found cognitive science, is a major figure in analytic philosophy, and holds posts as laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and institute professor emeritus at MIT. The catalogue lists 134 books, starting with Syntactic Structures (1957) and reaching The Myth of American Idealism (2024). Subjects range from generative grammar to world politics and terrorism.

Joel C. Rosenberg

26 books• 6 series

Middle East politics, terrorism and end-of-the-world themes run through Joel C. Rosenberg's thrillers. The Last Jihad (2002) opens the first series, followed by the David Shirazi, J.B. Collins and Marcus Ryker sequences, with non-fiction such as Epicenter (2006) and Inside the Revolution (2009) alongside. Twenty-six books are catalogued through The Beijing Betrayal in 2025, at 432 pages on median.

Tom Clancy

72 books• 9 series

Tom Clancy, born Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. on April 12, 1947 and dead on October 1, 2013, was an American writer of techno-thrillers, a form that carries technical detail about espionage and military science. An insurance agent before publishing, Clancy debuted with The Hunt for Red October in 1984. The Ryanverse books follow Jack Ryan, an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. Subjects across the listing include terrorism, suspense and espionage. The catalogue carries 72 titles under the Clancy name dated 1984 to 2023, with Bill McCay, Grant Blackwood and Peter Telep credited on one or two each.

Clive Cussler

104 books• 9 series

Clive Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. Cussler founded and chaired the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has located more than 60 shipwreck sites. Cussler's thrillers, many of them featuring Dirk Pitt, reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. The catalogue lists 105 books under Cussler's name, beginning with The Mediterranean Caper (1973), with The Serpent's Eye due in 2027. Robin Burcell shares credit on 6 of them, Jack Du Brul on 5 and Grant Blackwood on 3. Series include Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files and Sea Hunters.

Jonathan Maberry

146 books• 35 series

Jonathan Maberry, born May 18, 1958, is an American suspense author who also works as an anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright and writing teacher. Horror Novel Reviews named Maberry one of Today's Top Ten Horror Writers. The catalogue holds 147 books from The Black Road (2002) to Bewilderness (2026), with Avalon Station due in 2027. Listed series include Pine Deep, V-Wars, Rogue Team International, Rot & Ruin Graphic Novels and Kagen The Damned, and Joe Ledger and Benny Imura are among the tagged characters. Subjects include horror, zombies, vampires, terrorism and superhero comics.

Military and technological thrillers make up Larry Bond's work - submarines, intelligence officers and terrorism. Battles of the Third World War (1987) opens the catalogue, and Red Phoenix (1989), Vortex (1991) and Cauldron (1993) follow. Jerry Mitchell heads one series; Larry Bond's First Team and Red Dragon Rising head others. Twenty-five titles are catalogued, the last of them Arctic Gambit in 2018.

Arundhati Roy

24 books

Arundhati Roy is an Indian writer whose 24 catalogued books divide between fiction and political essays. The God of Small Things (1997) took the Booker Prize for Fiction that year and became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. The essays that follow, The Cost of Living (1999), Power Politics (2000), The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), War Talk (2003) and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2004) among them, take up globalisation, militarism, nuclear weapons, dams and state power. Roy was born in 1961 and works as a political activist on human rights and environmental causes. Roy took the PEN Pinter Prize in 2024 and named the imprisoned British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah as the Writer of Courage she shared it with. Mother Mary Comes to Me (2025) is the newest title.

Harry Harrison

93 books• 15 series

Harry Harrison, born Henry Maxwell Dempsey (March 12, 1925 to August 15, 2012), was an American science fiction author. The Stainless Steel Rat is the character most tied to Harrison, and the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! loosely inspired the film Soylent Green (1973). Harrison lived in Ireland and the United Kingdom, helped found the Irish Science Fiction Association and co-presided over the Birmingham Science Fiction Group with Brian Aldiss. Deathworld (1960), Bill, The Galactic Hero, To The Stars and Hammer and The Cross are among the catalogued works.

David Baldacci

71 books• 16 series

David Baldacci is an American novelist, born on 5 August 1960, who trained as an attorney and writes mostly suspense fiction and legal thrillers. The catalogue lists 72 Baldacci books, starting with Absolute Power (1996); All In appeared in 2026 and Boom Town is scheduled for 2027. Recurring leads include Amos Decker, Will Robie, John Puller, Atlee Pine and Aloysius Archer, alongside the Camel Club and the Sean King & Michelle Maxwell books. Baldacci novels have been published in more than 80 countries and 45 languages, with worldwide sales above 130 million copies.

Vince Flynn

26 books• 2 series

Vince Flynn, an American political thriller novelist born April 6, 1966, built a series around Mitch Rapp, a fictional assassin. The catalogue opens with Term Limits (1997), followed by Transfer of Power (1999), The Third Option (2000), Separation of Power (2001) and Executive Power (2003). Terrorism, intelligence officers, presidents and Washington, D.C. are among the recorded subjects. Flynn also worked as a story consultant on the fifth season of the television series 24, and died of prostate cancer on June 19, 2013. The listing carries titles dated well after that year, up to Double Tap (2026).

W.E.B. Griffin was the best-known pen name of William Edmund Butterworth III (November 10, 1929 to February 12, 2019), an American author of military and detective fiction. Under the Griffin name Butterworth published 59 novels across seven series, 21 of them written with Butterworth's son, William E. Butterworth IV. The catalogue files 194 titles here, including 1960s books issued as W.E. Butterworth, Webb Beech and Walker E. Blake. Series include Brotherhood of War, Presidential Agent and M*A*S*H, and World War II and the U.S. Marine Corps recur in the subjects.

Military aviation drives Dale Brown's technological thrillers. Patrick McLanahan and Brad McLanahan are the recurring characters across a catalogue of 52 books that opens with Flight of the Old Dog (1987) and reaches Devil's Fortress (2024). Dreamland, Puppet Master, Nick Flynn and the Jason Richter books are the named series. The United States Air Force, weapons systems, espionage and terrorism fill the subject tags.

Naval aviation and espionage define Stephen Coonts's thrillers. Jake Grafton leads the series that opens with Flight of the Intruder (1986), Tommy Carmellini heads a later one, and the Saucer books and Deep Black sit alongside. Terrorism, conspiracies, undercover operations and the Vietnam War are recurring subjects. Thirty-eight books run to Dragon's Jaw in 2019, and nothing new has appeared since.

Andrew Grant, born 1968, is an English thriller writer and the younger brother of Lee Child. Grant is taking over the Jack Reacher series from Child under the new pseudonym Andrew Child. The catalogue lists 15 books, starting with Even (2009) and reaching Chain Reaction (2026). Grant's own series are David Trevellyan, Detective Cooper Devereaux, Paul McGrath and Music and Murder Mystery, and intelligence officers, conspiracy and police procedure appear among the subjects.

Eric Van Lustbader, born on 24 December 1946, is an American writer of thrillers and fantasy who has also published as Eric Lustbader and Eric V. Lustbader. Lustbader graduated from Stuyvesant High School and from Columbia College with a sociology degree, holds a second-level Reiki degree, and is married to the author and editor Victoria Lustbader. The catalogue lists 55 books, from The Sunset Warrior (1977) to White Wolf (2025). Series include the Sunset Warrior Cycle, Nicholas Linnear/Ninja Cycle, China Maroc, Pearl Saga, Jack McClure/Alli Carson, Evan Ryder and Bravo Shaw. Subjects include espionage, intelligence officers and Japan.

Don Brown writes military and legal thrillers drawn from the United States Navy. Navy JAG officer Zack Brewer anchors the Navy Justice series, with courts-martial, submarines, terrorism and international crises supplying the plots. Fourteen books span 2005 to 2023, from Treason and Hostage (2005) through Black Sea Affair, The Malacca Conspiracy and Extortion 17 to 83 Days in Mariupol: A War Diary (2023). No new title has appeared since.

Donald Eugene Pendleton (December 12, 1927 to October 23, 1995) was an American author of fiction and non-fiction who created Mack Bolan, a character with hundreds of millions of copies sold since a 1969 debut. From 1980, other authors wrote the Bolan books under the Pendleton name, at first with Pendleton's editorial guidance. Pendleton also wrote six Joe Copp, Private Eye novels and six Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective novels. Early titles include The Insatiables (1967), War Against the Mafia (1969) and Miami Massacre (1970).

This listing covers Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan thrillers together with later books by other authors, 23 titles from 1984 to 2024. The Hunt for Red October (1984) opens the list, followed by Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears. Intelligence officers, terrorism and fathers and sons are recurring subjects. Red Rabbit, The Teeth of the Tiger, Dead or Alive and Threat Vector come later, and Act of Defiance (2024) is the newest entry.

George Friedman

11 books

George Friedman is a political scientist, futurologist and writer on geopolitics and international relations, born in Hungary on February 1, 1949. Friedman is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures and was previously chairman of Stratfor. The Coming War with Japan (1991), written with Meredith LeBard, forecast a US-Japan military conflict around 2020 and is the book Friedman is best known for. Other titles include The Next 100 Years (2008) and The Storm Before the Calm (2020).