My Retirement Reading List

I have always been a voracious reader even though I tend to read slowly for physical reasons. I also have a habit of reading several books simultaneously which helps to keep me from losing interest in any one of them. Rarely do I set a book aside and fail to complete it but sometimes I may set it aside for a year or more before I pick it back up.

Since I retired as a school superintendent on June 30, 2017, I have had an appetite for historical works and in particular biographies. I learned from an author that reading biographies is a better way to learn about our history since it becomes more personalized. Great biographical authors will detail events as they were interacted in, with, or by the principle subject. So far, I have found that to be true.

There are other topics that I take an interest in that are included in the list below. Some are related to my passion as a local historian, others to my continuing interest in our public education system. For better or worse, here is my list which includes at the end the three books I'm currently reading. And just a note, regardless of how it looks reading is certainly not the only activity I'm engaged in but it is certainly one I enjoy.

Part I: Books I have read since 7/1/17 (not necessarily in order):

Ullrich, Volker. Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939

McAfee, Andrew. Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing our Digital Future

Termin, Peter. The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejidice and Power in a Dual Economy

Formisano, Ronald P. Plutocracy in America: How Increasing Inequality Destroys the Middle Class and Exploits the Poor

Kelly, Kevin. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that Will Shape Our Future

Callahan, David. The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Guilded Age

Wadhwa, Vivek. The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future

Lewis, Michael. The Undoing Project: A Friendship that changed Our Minds

O’Reilly, Bill. Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence

Avlon, John P. Washington’s Farewell: The Founding father’s Warning to Future Generations

Orvell, Miles. The Death and Life of Main Street: Small towns in American Memory, Space and Community

Anderson, Sherwood. Poor White

Davies, Richard O. Main Street Blues: The Decline of Small-Town America

Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Kirk, Stephen. First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina

Sobel, Robert. Coolidge: An American Enigma

Lewis, Sinclair. Main Street

Whyte, Kenneth. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

Stampp, Kenneth M. America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World

Hilton, George. The Electric Interurban Railways in America

Grant, H. Roger. Electric Interurbans and the American People

Chernow, Ron. Grant

Cooper, William J. Jr. The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics

Meijer, Hendrik. Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century

Lewis, Sinclair. It Can’t Happen Here

Hitchcock, William I. The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

Greenberger, Scott S. The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur

Illich, Ivan: Deschooling Society

Merry, Robert W. President McKinley: Architect of the American Century

Hutchinson, Alex. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

Gave, Keith. The Russian Five: A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage

Caplan, Bryan. The Case Against Education: Why the Education system is a Waste of Time and Money

Dintersmith, Ted. What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America

Robinson, Ken. You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education

Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick. Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us about Raising Successful Children

Burcar, Colleen. It Happened in Michigan: Remarkable Events that Shaped History

Lewis, Tom. Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life

Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man who Transformed the Presidency and America

Meacham, Jon. The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

Fallows, James M. Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America

Churchwell, Sarah. Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream

Rosen, Jeffrey. William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913

Mayer, Milton Sanford. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45

Jeffers, H. Paul. An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland

Strauss, William. The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us about America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny

Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861

Socol, Ira; Moran, Pam; Ratliff, Chad. Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools

White, Ronald C. Jr. A. Lincoln

White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

Lewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me

Hoock, Holger. Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden

Cooper, John Milton Jr. Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Beschloss, Michael R. Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times

Stoddard, Francis R. The Truth about the Pilgrims

Baker, Bruce D. Educational Inequality and School Finance: Why Money Matters for America’s Students

Halberstam, The Fifties

Boles, John B. Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty

Westover, Tara. Educated

Hetherington, Marc. Prius or Pickup? How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America’s Great Divide

Meltzer, Brad. The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington

O’Reilly, Bill. Killing the SS: The Hunt of the Worst War Criminals in History

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

Dourcet, Armand. Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice

Luxenberg, Steve. Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation

Philbrick, Nathaniel. The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Part II: Books I am currently reading as of 4/11/19:

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution

Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

Kelly, Joseph. Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin