The History Reader

11/18/2025

Barnes & Noble has released their list of Best History Books of 2025. We love seeing that Tom Clavin's RUNNING DEEP, Siddharth Kara's THE ZORG, and Kostya Kennedy's THE RIDE all made the list. What are your favorite history reads of 2025?

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/books/history/_/N-29Z8q8Z11km

11/17/2025

Samuel Miller McDonald’s book, Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization and Now Threatens to Destroy It, offers a bold, provocative, wide-ranging argument about the human idea of progress.

Check out The History Reader article below in which McDonald discusses progress during the rise of “civilization” on earth (the Holocene period) and its subsequent effects on the planet.

Samuel Miller McDonald's Progress is a bold and wide-ranging argument about the idea of progress that offers a new vision of our future.

11/14/2025

This week marks 59 years since NASA sent up Gemini 12, the last manned space flight in the Gemini program. Jeffrey Kluger, author of Apollo 13 and Gemini, takes a look back at the Gemini project, the last launch of Gemini 12, and how the Gemini program prepared America to put men on the moon.

Start reading: https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/the-last-launch-of-the-gemini-program/

11/14/2025

The 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards are now open! Congratulations to our authors below who were nominated in the History & Biography category.

- The Cure for Women by Lydia Reeder
- Realm of Ice and Sky by BUDDY LEVY, Adventure Writer
- The Zorg by Siddharth Kara
- Propaganda Girls by Lisa Rogak

Head over to Goodreads and vote for your favorite book before round 1 closes on November 23: https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/readers-favorite-history-bio-books-2025

11/14/2025

From renowned underwater archaeologist David Gibbins, A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN TWELVE SHIPWRECKS is an exciting and rich narrative of human history told through the archaeological discoveries of twelve shipwrecks across time.

Now available in paperback: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/history-of-the-world-in-12-shipwrecks/

11/12/2025

Congratulations to Siddharth Kara's THE ZORG and Jeffrey Kluger's GEMINI for making Time 100 Must Read Books for 2025! What books will you be reading from this list?

Discover the novels, memoirs, biographies, and more that entertained and enlightened us

11/12/2025

In A BIOGRAPHY OF A MOUNTAIN, Matthew Davis shares a comprehensive narrative history of Mt. Rushmore, written in light of recent political controversies, and a timely retrospective for the monument’s 100th anniversary in 2025.

Read on for a featured excerpt: https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/featured-excerpt-a-biography-of-a-mountain/

11/12/2025

Congratulations to Siddharth Kara's THE ZORG and Jeffrey Kluger's GEMINI for making Time 100 Must Read Books for 2025!

What books will you be reading from this list?

Discover the novels, memoirs, biographies, and more that entertained and enlightened us

11/11/2025

As a historical fiction writer, author Charles Finch knows firsthand the challenges of making sure his modern-day perspective doesn’t color the perspective of his historical characters. Below, Finch shares with The History Reader how the main character from his new book, THE HIDDEN CITY, experiences the novel idea of working out in a gymnasium—an activity that is very common in today’s world but was brand new in Victorian London.

Start reading it over on The History Reader:

Historical fiction author Charles Finch discusses the challenges he faces when writing a character's perspective true to their own era.

11/07/2025

"EVERY WEAPON I HAD is the remarkable story of an uncommon man who performed almost superhuman feats of valor in heavy combat with a determined enemy... recommended to all who want to understand that rare breed of American servicemen who wear the nation’s highest award for valor." Read the full review in Association of the United States Army - AUSA National:

Gaining Insights From Modern Warfare

11/07/2025

It's out-of-this-world news that Apple Books chose GEMINI as one of the of November! GEMINI by Jeffrey Kluger is an exhilarating piece of space-race history that shows how NASA's Gemini program forged the skills that made the moon landing possible during the later Apollo program. Check it out here: https://books.apple.com/us/book/gemini/id6744894675

11/07/2025

As we are getting ready to honor U.S. veterans next week on Veterans' Day, "EVERY WEAPON I HAD is the remarkable story of an uncommon man who performed almost superhuman feats of valor in heavy combat with a determined enemy... recommended to all who want to understand that rare breed of American servicemen who wear the nation’s highest award for valor."

Read the full review by the Association of the United States Army - AUSA National: https://www.ausa.org/articles/november-2025-book-reviews