Struggling to find an intelligent holiday gift? Any of these 11 books would be great | Opinion

It’s that time of year when we wonder what to give that someone who has everything or just doesn’t need much. The no-brainer for that quandary is a trip to your local bookstore. What can be more important in this era of fake news and falsehoods than a book which adds to our understanding of the world around us and the lives of those our circumstances do not allow us to experience?

Remember those immortal words of Groucho Marx who said, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read!” Or a more serious version of the importance of a book from literary giant, Joyce Carol Oates, who said, “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul?”

Let’s begin the journey with a New York Times best-selling novel by slipping into the voice of Marcellus McSquiddles, a Giant Pacific Octopus living out his short life in an aquarium near Puget Sound. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by debut author Shelby Van Pelt is a Christmas gift of friendship, hope, family, and a dose of intrigue to top it off. With a bit of magical realism to aid and abet Marcellus, he is given his own chapters so readers learn from one of the most intelligent creatures of the seas, but he also tracks the lives of the humans outside his tank and comes to their rescue.

Readers should be forewarned. In Van Pelt’s book signing tour, she learned that readers quit ordering that octopus appetizer after reading about Marcellus and his kind. I was already there after interviewing Sy Montgomery for her nonfiction version of an octopus’ life in “The Soul of an Octopus.”

To usher in the Christmas spirit, why not gift a Christmas read about the master who wrote “A Christmas Carol?” Only this time give Boise’s own Samantha Silva’s “Mr. Dickens’ Carol,” her imagined take on how Charles Dickens struggled to write his Christmas masterpiece and the people he might have met along his writing journey. A Christmas classic, indeed.

Just in case the special person in your life will settle for nothing less than a thriller to keep the heart pounding and the reading light on late at night, then the obvious Christmas present is “Moscow X” by former CIA analyst David McCloskey. McCloskey has been called the new John le Carre’, but then it seems every other review of a spy novel compliments its author with the le Carre’ comparison. In this case, it just may work as the novel takes us inside the shadow war between Russia and the United States with very convincing spies and a thrilling finish reminiscent of le Carre’s Cold War terrain.

You say your Thanksgiving dinner was one of those encounters the media described as family and friends struggling with how to find common ground? Yascha Mounk has written just the book for both the left and right at the Christmas table, “The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in our Time.” Focused on the tribal world we live in today, Mounk’s analysis causes us to reconsider just how deep and wide we want the trenches that divide us to be, and he offers thoughts on how to escape the Identity Trap.

With James Risen’s visit to Idaho last fall to discuss and promote his book on Idaho’s Frank Church’s leadership in investigating CIA abuses of power in the 70’s, “The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys ― and One Senator’s Fight to Save Democracy” hardly needs any commentary from me. Ken Burns called it a “gripping…spectacular piece of reporting.” It reminds Idahoans what it must have been like to be represented in the United States Senate by a man with such courage and integrity, long gone from Idaho today.

Another book on the New York Times bestseller list chronicles the life of President Theodore Roosevelt’s oldest child, Alice Roosevelt. A perfect gift for the history buff that thought she knew all there was to know about the Roosevelts, “Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America” by Shelley Fraser Mickle certainly won my heart. President Roosevelt summed it up when he said that he “can do one of two things, I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot do both.” You may remember Alice’s most famous quote that reflects on her acerbic wit, “If you haven’t got anything good to say about anyone, come and sit by me.”

For this Idahoan, short on the microscopic details of the life and career of the Lion of Idaho, Sen. William Borah, it was quite a shocker to learn that Alice and Senator Borah, both of whom were married but not to each other, carried on an affair for years that produced the only child Alice would have. A perfect example of the book that keeps on giving as the reader learns the backstories the history books missed.

It would be an understatement to say the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan didn’t go very well, but there were heroics by Afghans and the Americans who came to their rescue that evening news reports missed. “The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan” captures just one such rescue. It’s the tale of an Afghan woman who valiantly stood up to the Taliban and the American diplomat who saved her and her child from death at the hands of the Taliban. This one is a thriller without an ounce of fiction.

How about a book to help explain bankruptcies, employee layoffs, staffing shortages and more? The book to gift is “Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America” by Brendan Ballou, a federal prosecutor who served as special counsel for private equity at the U.S. Department of Justice. Ballou documents how these firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services nursing homes and mobile home parks. In the process, companies go bankrupt, patients and residents suffer from reduced staffing and thousands lose their jobs, all with the objective of amassing wealth for private equity partners.

A book that surprises anyone who thinks all Republicans are the great defenders of big business from government regulation, here’s a gift for the conservative in your family although it speaks to liberals as well. “Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty — and What to Do About It,” covers some of the same ground as Plunder, but it is endorsed by Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio, who might not be expected to endorse this kind of trenchant criticism of big business. The book suggests there just might be a way to build a left-right consensus and find common ground so sorely needed at this moment in our history.

Let’s close this Christmas gift list with “Tyranny of the Minority” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. It explains why our democracy is under assault and what reforms are required to extinguish the authoritarian backlash in America. Readers may remember the authors’ last book, “How Democracies Die,” which helped us understand the underlying causes of our democratic decline.

There are so many pundits with their versions of what went wrong with our democracy and how to make it right. But there is at least one factor that cannot be disputed. It takes an engaged citizenry to protect our democratic way of life from the charlatans who would whisk away our freedoms with reckless abandon. Books are the lifeblood of that engaged citizenry and a Christmas gift of a book, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, may just get the brain’s wheels turning toward a better understanding of our human mates on this earth. We could all use a gift like that.

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.