Offerings are educational, intense

It’s time to take a look at the bookcase and see if there’s any reading I can recommend.

As usual with this quasi-annual exercise, my menu has been pretty eclectic in the past year.

No book has had a greater impact on me in 2019 than Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys,” a novel that resonates with truth.

I’d read Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad” and “John Henry Days” and while I loved them, I confess that I had a little trouble adjusting to his magical-realist style at first.

“The Nickel Boys” is completely different in style, very straightforward. It’s “sturdy,” as one of the characters would say. It is fiction firmly rooted in reality, and it has the potential to expand your horizons.

If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, pick it up when you can. It’s powerful stuff.

Also powerful is a work of non-fiction called “Say Nothing.”

It’s by Patrick Radden Keefe. The subtitle is, “A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,” and it’s as grim as it is powerful.

(My wife often asks me why I read depressing books; I haven’t yet come up with a convincing answer.)

“Say Nothing” represents years of reporting and research and countless interviews and provides the reader with a clear — and, yes, depressing — understanding of “The Troubles.”

Even grimmer is Anne Applebaum’s “Red Famine,” a meticulous account of the Holodomore, the intentionally directed famine that Stalin used to punish Ukraine for daring to show signs of independence. It’s a tough read, but it will help you understand the lingering ghosts that lie behind today’s Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Sticking with non-fiction, I can offer a couple that aren’t depressing.

One was sent to me by my brother Steve. It’s “Brunelleschi’s Dome” by Ross King, and it tells the fascinating story of the building of the dome of the Duomo in Florence, Italy, during the Renaissance.

The writing is lively, and the story is full of surprises. (Who knew that most of the great Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo, were ugly?) Reading history can seem like a drag, but if you approach it without worrying about a final exam, it can entertain.

Equally interesting history can be found in “The Map of Knowledge” by Violet Moller, which tracks down how classical thought survived the fall of the Roman Empire via a sidetrip to the Islamic world and translations into Arabic.

A bit heavier is “The Lies that Bind” by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Its subtitle is “Rethinking Identity,” and that’s just what Appiah does, taking on race, religion, gender and nationality.

Okay, that’s enough homework, here are a few thrillers.

Ray Cooney turned me onto Michael Koryta, who is speaking at Jay County Public Library in November. Koryta’s work can be too intense for some; just ask my wife.

But the writing is outstanding and the plots can cause you to gasp. I’ve read several but have to say my favorite is “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which begins at a quarry in southern Indiana.

In the past, I think I’ve recommended the spy/suspense novels of Joseph Kanon.

After a few of his books, I was afraid that they’d become formulaic.

But I was wrong.

There’s nothing formulaic about two of his best, “The Prodigal Spy” and “Los Alamos.”

Kanon is a specialist when it comes to that murky period from the middle of World War II to the fall of the Iron Curtain. It’s often hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, but the characters ring true.

Both “Prodigal” and “Los Alamos” are excellent, but I’d have to say “Los Alamos” qualifies as one of the best suspense novels I’ve ever read.

I’m going to lend my wife my copy.