August 28th - We Read
This post is part of our work on the "August is National Emergency Management Awareness Month" campaign - We read quite a bit.
Read, Read, Read
As Emergency Managers, we read a lot.
has an entire column call “The Baker’s Dozen” on with book reviews.His latest review (posted 8/28/25) is on the book by
: Leadership Lessons Learned and Applied: In Emergency Management and Beyond.EMN’s annual book list announcement is coming soon! Here’s what
did in 2022:The Books Every Leader Needs to Read
Every year we look at what books our team recommends, the Ten Books that you need to have on your bookshelf, and read them! Now you are entering a room of book nerds and people that have debates and discussions about the authors, the values and lessons learned from each of the books. Some are new, some are classic, and some are unique. Join us for a gre…
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Favorite Read of 2025 - Mike Prasad
For me, it has been the book The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. I was referred to this book by my granddaughter, as there is a version for K12 schools. Her principal had all the teachers read it and then they presented the concepts to the kids. It has direct correlation to the practice and profession of Emergency Management, especially the day-to-day grind of trying to justify why we need to prepare, prevent, protect, and mitigate. Since I read the book, I have been incorporating themes and concepts into my social media posting on LinkedIn. Basically, I am driving an advocacy bus on a certain route of disaster readiness. You are welcome aboard my bus, and you are welcome to create your own bus and route, too. Beware of the energy vampires though, I won’t pick them up on my bus and might even vanquish them as I drive towards disaster resiliency.
First runner-up is Compassion in Disaster Management: The Essential Ethic of Relational Leadership by Mark Crosweller. Second runner-up is The Ostrich Paradox: Why we Underprepare for Disasters by Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther. I am still in the middle of both of these books… and there are others I pick up, read a few pages, then put down. Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat. Three of those are A Code for the Government of Armies in the Field by Francis Lieber, Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service edited by Michael Lewis, and It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.
And in a shameless plug, every January my consulting firm has put out an Emergency Management / Leadership list of 13 books each year (our own baker’s dozen, so to speak) since 2020. You can find the past lists here: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020.
Favorite Read of 2025 - Lori Hodges
We asked our friend and EM colleague Lori Hodges about her favorite books, and here’s what she wrote us back:
My favorite book is a classic - Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. There are more reasons than I can count as to why this book moves me, but one specific part of the book keeps coming to my mind quite often these days. The phoenix is a huge part of the story - it comes up again and again. But toward the end of the book there is a quote that for me, brings everything together. I have a blog post all about it - you can read it here.
Lori is also an author! Her book Shaking in the Forest: Finding Light in the Darkness was released on July 14, 2024 and is available at most major booksellers.
31 Days of Emergency Management Awareness
As part of the “August is National Emergency Management Awareness Month” campaign, originated by the IAEM-USA, to raise awareness of the field of professional Emergency Management (as well as better describe what Emergency Managers do, don’t do, etc.), we bring you our take on