My 2025 reading list leans hard into the big, difficult stuff - atomic fire over Japan, mass graves in Rwanda and Bosnia, the Molly Maguires, Irish soldiers in blue, and one unforgettable novel about a single patch of New England ground. These are the books that shaped his thinking this year about memory, violence, grief, and how we tell stories. Read the full story.
Looking back over a year of reading is always enlightening, and 2024 was no exception! This year, my favorite reads spanned from oral histories of D-Day to the Civil War and modern political extremism. Here are my top five non-fiction books that I couldn’t put down this year.
In Tracy Campbell's 2020 book, the author uses the examples from the anthracite coal fields to show how our national myths about World War II often miss the mark.
Charles H. King Jr. lead seminars about race in America and participated in the Civil Rights movement. He grew up in Schuylkill County.
Author Mark Bulik eloquently describes the labor wars that consumed Schuylkill County in the 1870s.
Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Leadership in Turbulent Times" looks at Theodore Roosevelt and the 1902 coal strike.
"Dear Ma" reveals the letters of a Civil War soldier from Schuylkill County.
After more than 150 years, a regimental history finally tells the story of this Coal Region regiment.