This Christmas, my sweet wifey Lynndee kept alive a tradition she began the first year she was in the US, before we even got married: buying books as gifts for me. She’d arrived here in the US just a month before her first Christmas here, yet she already knew what a book lover I am.

And that Christmas, she aced it by getting me Tom Clancy’s newest book, already having seen my collection of his Jack Ryan series. And there’s been at least one gift book every Christmas since then, though no more Clancy books; he’s since died, and though the series has been continued by an author chosen by his estate, I refuse to go there. With his death, his imagination and vision has also vanished.

Still, Lynndee knows of my loves when it comes to reading, and she has no problem choosing reading material for me. I love history and biographies, and this Christmas, not only the tradition of buying books was continued, but another tradition moved onward: she bought me another book by Chris Matthews.

BOBBY KENNEDY: A RAGING SPIRIT

Though Matthews is the host of the MSNBC talking-head style news show Hardball with Chris Matthews, he’s also an accomplished author, having written several books. And of his writings, Lynndee has bought me three of his books as Christmas gifts: JACK KENNEDY: Elusive Hero; Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked; and this year’s addition, Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit.

Like me, Matthews came of age during the Kennedy years and was greatly touched by the tenor of that era, leading him to join the United States Peace Corps and serving for two years in Swaziland. He then made his way to Washington, D.C., where he initially worked as an officer with the United States Capital Police. Then he went on to serve on the staffs of four Members of Congress, highlighted by working for six years as Chief of Staff to longtime Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, the story he tells in Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked.

JOE BIDEN: PROMISE ME, DAD

But as well as getting me Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit,  Lynndee also got me Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose, a moving memoir by former Vice President Joe Biden that shares the experience of dealing with his son’s battle against a malignant brain tumor and the aftermath.

If one is willing to put politics and personal bias aside, each one of these books share amazing stories and experiences, many of which all of us may have already experienced or will possibly deal with at sometime in our life. So not only are they educational about the past, they may pave a path to future lessons.