The Navy wants its sailors reading again, but its top enlisted leader isn’t handing the fleet a one-size-fits-all syllabus.
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman released “MCPON’s Bookshelf” on Sept. 23, a new collection of professional resources and recommended books built around everything from understanding the Navy and mastering a rating to leadership and personal development.
The goal, Perryman said, is ultimately bigger than checking titles off a list.
Navy Wants Sailors to Build a Reading Habit
MCPON’s Bookshelf is organized into four areas: Reading for Every Sailor, Build Your Craft, Lead People, and Grow Beyond the Uniform.
The Navy describes the progression as understanding the profession, mastering the job, learning how to lead, and continuing to develop beyond it.
That approach lines up closely with the priorities Perryman laid out after becoming the Navy’s 17th MCPON in September 2025. They include technical mastery and continuous development, alongside his broader emphasis on sailors and their families.
Perryman, a submariner who enlisted in 1994 and spent much of his career as an electronics technician, has repeatedly emphasized that sailors should know their equipment and their jobs rather than treating formal Navy schools as the end of their education.
“My goal isn’t for every sailor to read the same books. It’s to build a habit of learning.”
The new bookshelf is divided accordingly:
- Reading for Every Sailor begins with foundational materials sailors should understand about their profession.
- Build Your Craft moves into resources aimed at technical expertise and becoming better at a sailor’s specific job.
- Lead People focuses on the increasingly complicated business of being responsible for somebody besides yourself.
- Grow Beyond the Uniform expands the bookshelf into personal development, with the Navy describing the overall collection as something sailors can use throughout their careers and lives.
Perryman also made clear that inclusion on the list does not mean the Navy endorses every position an author takes. Instead, the books are intended to expose sailors to different perspectives and ideas.
Reading Lists Have Included Everything From War Stories to Sci-Fi
Professional reading is hardly new to the service, with Navy leaders pushing organized reading programs for sailors for decades.
The Navy’s previous major professional reading program update in 2021 included 53 books selected by the chief of naval operations, and another 21 recommended by then-MCPON Russell Smith.
Those books were divided among readiness, capabilities, capacity and sailors, with recommendations ranging across fiction, history, military strategy, leadership, management and technology.
Some of the choices were exactly what someone might expect to find on a military reading list. C.S. Forester’s The Good Shepherd, Edward L. Beach Jr.’s submarine novel Run Silent, Run Deep and William H. McRaven-era leadership fare all made appearances.
Others wandered much further from the quarterdeck.
Robert Heinlein’s military science-fiction classic Starship Troopers was included among the MCPON recommendations, alongside Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, and Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Navy Ensign Gabe Tayco, assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee, looks through a book in the Rare Book Room at Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., on June 3, 2026. MCPON John Perryman’s new reading initiative encourages sailors to seek out books and resources that strengthen their skills and leadership. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jonathan Taylor)
That variety was deliberate. The 2021 program was intended, in part, to improve critical thinking, expose sailors to perspectives beyond their own, and encourage discussion about both the maritime profession and the changing world around it.
Perryman’s new bookshelf shifts the emphasis away from everyone marching through the same stack of books. He instead encouraged sailors to find material that improves their work, leadership or personal development, and then pass on useful recommendations to their shipmates.
Sailors May Not Have to Buy the Books Themselves
Another practical question behind any military reading list is who pays for all those books.
The answer may be nobody. Service members can already access thousands of free ebooks and audiobooks through public-library apps and the DOD MWR Digital Library.
The Navy’s 2021 reading program said most of its 74 recommended titles were available for free to sailors as ebooks or audiobooks through the Navy MWR digital library.
That digital library has since expanded into the joint-service DOD MWR Libraries system. Navy MWR says eligible users currently have access to more than 250,000 ebooks, audiobooks and magazines, along with more than 80 other online resources.
Services available through the library include OverDrive and Libby, which carry ebooks and audiobooks including bestsellers, classics and titles appearing on professional reading lists. The resources are free to eligible patrons.
The Navy’s announcement of MCPON’s Bookshelf does not say that every title on Perryman’s new list is currently available through the digital library, so sailors will still need to check individual availability.
But Perryman appears less interested in creating a mandatory canon than in getting sailors to open something useful in the first place.
“Read. Study. Ask questions,” he told the fleet when announcing the bookshelf.
For sailors wondering where to start, the Navy has now given them four shelves to choose from.
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