Some Book Gift Ideas

While 2020 has been a pretty miserable year for many activities, it’s been a great year for reading…..because, well, you can only stream so much. (Season 4 of The Crown is really good, by the way, as is the Queen’s Gambit, both on Netflix) So, if you’re looking for gift ideas for others or even for yourself, of the many I read this year, here are 10 I recommend.

History/Biography

• George Marshall: Defender of the Republic, by David Roll, 606 pages. Brilliant biography of the World War II Army Chief of Staff who led our war efforts and then developed the plan, as Secretary of State, that rebuilt and unified western Europe after the war.
• Trilogy about FDR as U.S. Commander in Chief during WW II, by Nigel Hamilton. As FDR died before he could ever compile a memoir, Hamilton wrote these three books detailing his irreplaceable, but little-documented, military guidance to contrast with Churchill’s memoirs that, ahem, may exaggerate the prime minister’s impact on the Allies’ war strategy.

Fiction

• Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, 210 pages. Well-written novel based loosely on the real-life Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida that abused and even killed teenage boys, mostly black, for decades in the early to mid-20th century.
• The Last Enchantments, by Charles Finch, 323 pages. Novel about an American’s year studying at Oxford and how his England experience sent him on to adulthood, whatever that is, back in the States.
• The Dry, by Jane Harper, 327 pages. Murder mystery set in Australia by a very talented, first-time author.

Non-Fiction

• Nights in White Castle, by Steve Rushin, 305 pages. A clever, hilarious memoir by the Sports Illustrated columnist about his coming of age in Minneapolis. Did I mention it’s hilarious?
• The Back Channel, by William J. Burns, 423 pages. Interesting inside look at 30 years of American diplomacy, primarily Russia and the Middle East, by a career foreign service officer – a non-partisan, non-political account.
• The Victory Machine: The Making and Unmaking of the Warriors’ Dynasty, by Ethan Sherwood Strauss, 212 pages. An inside look at the construction of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors championship teams and how the exit of Kevin Durant sent them back to the cellar.

Any suggestions for me?

Steve Byars, CFP®