Christmas Book Gift Recommendations 2025

0:28Hi, I'm Ryan Davis. I'm living the dream. Thank you for asking. Oh, it's, it's, um, you just had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I assume. Oh God, I'm stuffed. I'm just, I feel like the stuffing just isn't leaving my body. It's just spreading into the extremities. I've never been a stuffing guy. Really? I feel like you're having the wrong stuff. Here's the question. Have you in Maryland, do they call it dressing or do they call it stuff? Oh no, it's definitely stuffing. okay good i thought see this is where when you pretend that you're a southerner that's just not true if you're calling it stuffing you're you're you're close well maybe it was stuffing in my fancy you know maryland family and maybe in the eastern shore family it was yeah no would you have thanksgiving at the shore house or in the standard house the the primary residence the hamptons of the state of course um and uh yeah i was super you know past thanksgiving now i'm super plugged into christmas i've got the the christmas music going i've got the the tree up i've got stockings hung with care and i have like uh kids gifts secreted all around the house it's been christmas in bogota for for for it feels like months there's just christmas trees everywhere, Christmas music, because they don't have Thanksgiving, so there's no buffer.

1:54Yeah. No, I've got buddies in Canada and England, and they've been posting Christmas stuff for the last three weeks. Yeah. No, we got to check that Mariah Carey chart, because I think that's actually the official, when either one for Christmas is used starts trending, that's when people are like, okay, let's do this. Personally, I always look at what new Christmas albums are coming up each year. Are you 75? No, I just really like Christmas music. And I was very disappointed by this year's showings. Very disappointed. It's like Bad Bunny, D 'Alupa, who's putting out Christmas albums? Almost nobody.

2:36It's that acapella group everybody listens to, Pentatonic. Everybody doesn't listen to that, Kiernan. And they slut you in. Because Because this is Christmas related today, because we are going to each be recommending three great books to give any traveler or I would say any history, culturally interested person in your life. And they're not going to be. This is the thing that I think is kind of neat. Everybody goes for the hard covers, the new list. You and I are diving deep into what we think are the actual best books. Yeah, I'm excited. It was fun to put this list together. There are so many books that I could have included because, as you know, I'm a big reader.

3:17You love carrying around books. I do know that. He's got one arm that has muscles like you wouldn't believe in. It's because he carries these great tomes around. And not in a bag. Don't think it's in a bag. They are right out there for people to see. It's like a schoolboy. I'm surprised you don't have one of those belts that goes around like three books so you could carry them a little easier. He's leaning off screen. It actually is in a bag because I told you that I got myself a lovely bag made in the Boston metro area by a guy named Frank Clegg, who's been making messenger bags since 1970. They manufactured in the Boston area.

3:59I think it should be in your next update. They do a factory tour. Oh, I'm in for a factory tour. You won me over a factory tour. All right. Do you know I have my last stop is a factory tour. I'm excited to say. um uh but listen we've got we we've jumped right in we've we've got let's hit it quickly i really want to get to the big stuff but we've got some news uh but but we have to start with the judy alert which is i know you've been uh been very nervous lately about leaving ever since the atlanta disaster couldn't get to ireland you're sort of nesting there i'm picking up that you're you're in bogota am i right i'm i'm in bogota but on december the 8th i fly to madrid to begin my basically three months in Europe.

4:44So I'm excited about that. I'll be meeting up. That's very exciting. Yeah, meeting up with friends of the pod, Chase Whiteside. Acquaintance of the pod. And yeah, so it's going to be a really fun trip. I'm in the process of planning it right now. We've figured out the big Christmas Eve plan, the New Year's Eve plan, And now kind of building the itinerary around these, these, you know, places that I've never been starting with Seville, which will be interesting. And you got to read that book. You may remember a very early, very early, very bad audio episode called, it was what it was called. Sleeping in, sleeping in.

5:26It's called room with a pew. Yeah. And it's about sleeping in monasteries. That nunneries. I have to say that's all around Spain. 215 episodes. That's the worst audio episode by far. I think that that wins. Oh, no. There's one that rivals it, which I hate because it was a great interview, which was about refurbishing and opening up as a tourist attraction the control room for the moon landing. That one was a great episode. But early on, we just didn't know how to record. I was letting people call in and that's just horrible audio. Call in. It's like the Rush Limbaugh show. You'd be right. Room with a pew might be the worst because not only was it called, then it was two people called.

6:07That was really, really bad. Anyway, and so are you staying in Europe for that whole duration? Yeah, I'm going to be in Europe until basically the beginning of February. Okay, great. Yeah. So going to see a lot of sites, have a lot of episodes on small Spanish towns, do an episode finally on Florence, which I'm super excited about. This is going to be great for your Spanish language skills. Because you're so fluid in Spanish, but it's really with a South American accent. And I feel like now you're going to get the pure Spanish. Yeah. Well, whenever I'm in Madrid, I mostly just hang out with Colombians.

6:45So it's hard to... I mean, it is primarily... I know a lot of people think you don't know Spanish. It was just so unfair that they think that. So unfair. I think it's really down to the accent. I can read some Spanish. Anyway. You can now, now that you have those specs, I've noticed you've got some new specs going there. You know, thank you. Are these pure fashion or are these functional? No, these are functional. But these are like, these are like nice, like drugstore fake glasses. Readers. Yeah, they're, what do they call those old person glasses? Well, you've got them now. They're readers. They're called readers.

7:22Readers, that's right. Well, listen, you're going to need readers for this piece of news and for the books we're going to recommend. But before we get to the books, there's, you know, National Park News. I got to bring National Park News as an enthusiast here to the pod. And big news is that the federal government is raising the amount that foreign tourists have to pay to enter our national parks. A hundred dollars, which is two or three times more expensive than Americans will pay per person to to visit the the parks. And it's controversial. You know, on one side, it's positive that we'll be getting revenue.

8:00And I am actually all for charging foreign tourists higher fees to get into American national parks. I think that that's a fine thing to do. This just seems like a pretty high charge when tourism is already really down. Yeah, I never complain when as a US citizen, I have to pay more to enter a museum or a national park when I'm traveling. Or to use a bathroom. Yeah, but usually it's not three times as much. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. And it prompted me to look up what we're on trend to lose in tourism this year. And on a yearly basis, we are down about 23 % in foreign tourism. And I think that this will make that go even lower.

8:47Maybe we could hit a new record. Well, I think if folks pick up your Boston book, they're going to have a lot of other ideas. A lot of very manageable, nearly free things in there. That's called Secret Boston. Yeah. Great stocking stuff by Kiernan P. Schmidt. So this might be bad for the Pacific Northwest, but could be great for New England. I completely agree. We only have one national park in New England, which is Acadia. That's the only national park in all of New England. And that does that make the list? Cause I know there was only like a 10 or 15. interesting. I don't know that very good.

9:21I'll have to do a recalculating. Yeah. But Ryan, one thing we don't need to recalculate is our recommendations on three books each that we're going to give from our own experience that we think are just right for the traveler in your life. So I think it's time to take off. Tell the cabin crew. Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff, please. All right, Ryan. Well, we're taking off. There's nothing. I mean, I actually like to watch movies when I'm on airplanes, but a lot of people I know, of course, yourself, especially with those sharp readers you've got there, love to pull out a big, a thick tome.

9:57And oh, it's so wonderful to show off a big academic book on an airplane because you know everybody's looking at what you're all doing. And so instead of watching the Super Mario Brothers movie, Ryan, I want to know what it, I think we're going to go you, then me, then you, then me to recommend a book that, you know, may not be the freshest, newest book, but is just right for an avid traveler. Yeah. Well, you know what? I was sort of inspired by, by your list. I had imagined that you were going to go a little more kind of travel genre. Yeah, I know. Cause you were kind of a jerk when we were getting ready and you were like, duh, Kiernan, your books are going to be The Traveler's Guide to How to Travel.

10:40When did that become my reputation? I've got a degree in English. I appreciate literature. No, I appreciate that. And when I saw your list, I was like, wow, Kiernan's bringing his Harvard undergrad cred to this. We don't have to drop the H-bomb. We don't want everybody to get jealous here. But yeah, I think we've each come up with three books that are not themselves travel books, but are all about people who traveled and travels as part of life. All right. So who do we have first? Travel as part of life. Okay. So this is a book that I read about 10 years ago when it first came out, and I still think about it quite a bit.

11:23And that is Lafayette in the somewhat United States by the great Sarah Vow. Love Sarah Vow. And what she does that's really fun is she weaves in Lafayette, the general who helped the French general who helped us win the, the revolutionary war. Everybody not, you know, but it used to be obscure Hamilton. Now everybody knows who Lafayette is. So, so we weave in Lafayette's life and his travels around the U S with her going to those places as a journalist and as a tourist. And so you get everything from a, you know, a funny story about a hotel that she's staying in to how Lafayette, you know, influenced this specific part of, of America.

12:03So it's a really, really fun read. And I want to steal this format one day for my great Bolivar travel book. I was just about to say, I think that this is your Bolivar book ready to be written. I also, I'm such a big fan of themed road trips. I have a themed road trip I haven't pulled off yet, but I kind of see it as a retirement project to hit all the Cold War nuclear sites that you can still visit in the United States. So in South Dakota, there's still Minuteman nuclear missile sites that are down in the ground that once or twice a year they open up for you to go on a tour of. And then I know you mentioned the Pacific Northwest earlier.

12:48When we took a road trip through the Pacific Northwest, I read about a nuclear facility that they open once a month. And I was just like, oh, how did I not put this on our itinerary? So I like it. You're going to do the Boulevard road trip. I'll do nuclear cold war. And, uh, you know, uh, that just brings me to something in Delaware related to the cold war. Uh, they have these, uh, world war two observation towers across the three of them, the Delaware beach that, uh, you can visit, go up to the top. And that's where people would monitor to see if there were planes coming to literally drop bombs on Washington DC.

13:25Yeah. So maybe, maybe that's where I start off. That can be the East coast start. Yeah, definitely. One thing I remember, I also know this book well, and I remember after it, because this was before Lafayette was everywhere. And you came to realize, well, Lafayette actually is everywhere. And when you notice the number of things that are named after Lafayette, suddenly you can't stop seeing them all across America. Yeah, totally. And Lafayette has this trip where he comes back as an old man and visits George Washington and stuff. So he sees America from the founding to the fledgling. Yeah, that was beautiful.

14:05That's going to be on the back cover, I think. Thank you. What did you bring to us, Kieran? All right. Well, my God, I'm debating whether to go. I'm going to go to the one that's of a similar ilk to yours, which is it's a book called Dead Presidents, an American Adventure into the Strange Deaths and Surprising Afterlives of Our Nation's Leaders. And it's by a sometimes NPR reporter, Brady Carlson. And again, it's a themed road trip book where he basically goes to look at the grave sites and the monuments and tell some of the stories behind the controversial deaths and when president's bones have been exhumed or they've changed their places.

14:47and for a presidential history interested person, this is like a great, rompy, funny sort of book, very similar to like a Sarah Vowell sort of approach. I hadn't heard of this book and that sounds right up my alley. It's great. And I actually think both of these book two are excellent audio book adventures. Usually Sarah Vowell does her own audio books. I imagine Brady probably does the same. And, but I read it and I found it to be, It told me a lot of sort of forgotten histories about the president's bodies. And also, you know, I love visiting presidential sites. I visited many of these grave sites.

15:26And it's really, it does get into a little bit of the philosophical debate of like, when presidents leave the presidency, are they supposed to return to becoming just a regular citizen, which was sort of the whole idea behind George Washington stepping back after eight years? and everyone gave him credit for, you know, this is why he's not a king. And so in death, should they be given more humble burials or do we want, you know, grand monuments? And also at some point after so many presidents, you know, how many grand monuments are we going to create? That's sort of what's going on with the presidential libraries now.

16:05Yeah, no, I'm, but I'm a fan of grand monuments. I can think of one current president who's going to build himself a hell of a monument. And you know what? But for those listeners who are excited about that, I hope that you can give us a report and a five star review on Apple. Cornhusker 55, we're looking at you. You know, I think the Obama presidential library really looks dated already. It's been a while. Like when's that thing getting going? Yeah, well, they just released like what it's going to look like. And everyone was like, ooh. Ooh, not so hot. Not so hot. Yeah, well, Obama's made a lot of questionable.

16:44Here's a little red meat for our red listeners. I think Obama's post-presidency has been a little shaky. Yeah, yeah. All right, right. What is your second book? So I'm going to jump to a novel. This is a novel I read a few years ago by the great Irish novelist Colm Tobin, who's best known for his novel, Brooklyn, that became a movie that did very, very well a few years ago. But is a great novelist. He wrote a book in 2021 called The Magician, and this is about the life of Thomas Mann. And it follows Thomas from his childhood in Germany to his escape to Switzerland during the war to his eventual exile into the United States, and then his eventual move back to Europe.

17:34And in all these places, the locations are really important and he becomes a part of the community and he meets with people who are prominent in these times. So it's like a super cool history of how the war affected one specific German who had to flee the country and go into exile and then eventually come back to a new Europe. And it filled me with ideas and places that I want to go. And I'm actually coincidentally reading right now The Master. He's holding it up, folks. I can confirm that he has purchased a copy. Yeah. The Master, which is also by Tobin. And it's about Henry James. And that's why I texted you about Henry James.

18:22I'm not a Henry James fan. I feel like, I don't know. It just doesn't scratch my itch. But he really, again, this is another book where he starts in New England, he goes to Europe. And God, I really wish I lived in this time where if you had an acquaintance, somebody who was like a friend of a friend, they would send a letter to that friend and be like, Bill's going to come hang out of your house for three weeks. For six months. Yeah. And be like, great. And then you would just go there. But it's just, you know, Airbnb really monetized everything. It should just be like, oh, you know, honey, we got my third cousins coming.

18:57I mean, that's also the time period. You know, it's like these famous stories about Ben Franklin, where like when you travel together, you would like sit like three to a bed and you'd argue all night about whether the window should be on. Are you sure you're yearning for those days? That's still how I travel, Kieran. But, you know. Can I just ask, where does the term the magician come from? Why is it called that? um i i mean i think after he did the master he needed another term for like somebody who's really all right we're starting to question whether he's read it we can all question it together how it's not a magician um okay he's not a magician adding even more mystery to why it's called that uh kieran did you bring a second book for us today it's not a lot of crap i'm actually cramming in a second and a third here, but they're by the same author.

19:46And the reason I think this is a great pair is because I've given these as gifts several times because they make a beautiful set to add to your bookshelf and they are dense. So they've got to really, you got to know they're going to be interested in this, but it actually ties to the national park news up at the top. This is by a historian named Douglas Brinkley. Ryan and I have actually both met Douglas Brinkley many years ago at the American Museum of Natural History when we worked there together. And he wrote a first volume called Wilderness Warrior, Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, and followed that up and even designed the cover to match rightful heritage, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Land for America by Douglas Brinkley.

20:35And these are, it's a great set. Again, I want to say they're like heavy history. And because I'm such a Ted head, a Theodore Roosevelt nut, I loved how deep this was a focus on conservation efforts. You know, Theodore Roosevelt was really the first president to push the limits of how much land could be preserved under executive power. And FDR so admired TR that he sort of took up that mantle and famously created a lot of programs during the depression to employ Americans to not only save our lands and protect our lands, but to make them accessible for tourism. So that, you know, a lot of the paths, the roads, the walls, the just basic infrastructure of parks really go back to FDR's vision, which go back further to Theodore Roosevelt's vision.

21:31And these two are just a fantastic primer if you're a nature-focused tourist in America, this tells you where all that great infrastructure and land came from. Yeah, Wilderness Warrior has been on my list forever. There are so many TR bios that I want to read. Well, it's a great point because there's too many TR bios. And as far as I'm concerned, the Morris trilogy is the key one, the key set. And then The Wilderness Warrior is one of the rare, very focused ones. I almost put River of Doubt on here, which is a great travel story about Theodore Roosevelt post-presidency mapping a river in South America, nearly dying several times.

22:17It's actually not unlike your own journey, Ryan. When he went to South America, he lost about half his weight as well. But I don't think he was on Ozempic. I think it was because there was no food available. Well, that's actually a good pivot into my third and my final recommendation. And that is a book that we've talked about on the pod before. And I really want to get the author on. And that is Bolivar, American Liberator. And this is a 2013 biography by Maria Arana. And it covers Bolivar's life. And he's basically the George Washington of South America. And he frees many, many countries from Spanish rule.

22:59and he spends his entire life you know you you read facts like he covered uh the the globe three times on horseback um in fact we talked about how they used to call him a old old iron butt because his uh his butt was so hard from all the horse riding i think you've dated a couple of those you made that same joke the last time uh but uh so he you know he travels around of Venezuela and what is now Venezuela in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia. And I've been to a lot of these spots and places where he fought battles and places where he hit. It's much like in the US where you'll be in any sort of random town in New England.

23:45It's like, George Washington's horse went to the bathroom here. And it's sort of like Boulevard has got that kind of a physical presence in Latin America. And you really feel this incredible biography that is also just really fun to read and really compelling and like an adventure story and a war story. Boulivar was a womanizer, believe it or not. So, yeah. I don't believe it. Yeah, that's true. Well, I think you kind of combined the Lafayette and the Boulevard in that. I feel like if you put those two into chat GPT and just say, make me a road trip book based on Bolivar, you're finally going to publish your great contribution to American letters.

24:32You know the one place that I'm missing, and if Trump has his way, I might get to go there in the next couple of years. And that's Caracas. Oh, sure. Oh, oops. Yeah. I've been to where Bolivar died. I've been to where Bolivar lived, where he fought. but I've not been to where he was born because that is in Caracas. And it's not been, you know, my mom says, I'll just recommend don't take a boat there. A small, a small yacht with some of my, my fishing buddies. I wasn't commenting on that. I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm just saying, I think air travel might be a little quicker. Well, yes.

25:15Kiernan, did you bring a final recommendation? I did. This one's fun because now you got fiction and I didn't manage to get fiction in, but this one is a photography book that I love. And it's called Thank You, Please Come Again, How Gas Stations Feed and Fuel the American South. Okay, stick with me here. This is by a photojournalist whose name is Kate Medley. And what she took as her subject were restaurants across the American South that are built into gas stations. And so she saw all manner of immigrant stories, sort of small business owners, people who decided to, you know, open up a restaurant as sort of their expression of creativity and contribution to the economy.

26:04And what she comes away with is such a great snapshot of immigrant stories of the way that so many Americans live, which are not in the huge cities with endless food options, but really these more kind of down home off the beaten path places. They're very practical. You know, they've got food, some of which looks great, some of which doesn't look so good. They've got decor that, you know, isn't the latest fashion in fancy New York, but they are exactly the sorts of places that if you really want to get the flavor of a place, this is where you seek out to go. And so I just love this like unvarnished real look at the American South.

26:47And what an interesting hook to do it at gas stations. Yeah, that's... I mean, I lived, as you talk about often, at my beach house at a little town called Dame's Quarter, Maryland. And there was one gas station in the town. And that's where you went and you picked up your packages. And back then, you rented videos. They had like 100 VHS tapes that you could read. So it was sort of the one place you could go every day to see what was happening and what the gossip was. I mean, I assume you would send the servants to go do that, but the point is the same, which is that the gas station, that's an essential place that everybody's going and it can be a gathering place.

27:28And I will say for my own part, given that I am in a restaurant business here in Boston, I find it very inspiring to look at people who are trying to make it in restaurants and food because there's something wonderful about bringing people together. And this just being in the Northeast, you don't really see this type of restaurant. I'll also look, if you want to preview this book, we'll obviously include the links to all these books in the show notes. But this book, Kate Medley actually made available as a free PDF online. So before you buy the full bound lovely edition, you can actually browse it and check it out.

28:03I'll see if she still has it available. Cool. Oh, well, that sounds good. Well, Kiernan, I think it's time for The Last Stop. Last Stop. Ladies and gentlemen, this is The Last Stop on this train. Everyone, please leave the train. All right, Ryan. Well, we're here in The Last Stop. This is the last section of the show, the final section of the show. That's why it's called The Last Stop. It's my favorite segment. It's your favorite segment. It's popularly known as the people section. Sometimes you see shirts and people just yelling, people section. people. So that's what they're talking about this segment.

28:38And that's because it's a place where we come together as a community and we share, particularly Ryan and I share. We each bring one thing and it could be anything. It could be a story, it could be a joke, it could be an article, could be a hot take, but it must check one box. It must inspire the spirit of wanderlust within us, even during the work a day week. So Ryan, post Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas, pre-New Year's, it's work a day now. So I'm going to ask you as I ask you every episode, do you have a last stop this week? Yes, I do. Last weekend, I went out in Bogota to their version of the affordable art fair, where everything is under a million pesos, which is like$300.