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Are out of holiday gift ideas for those on your list? Perhaps you have procrastinated because some people are simply difficult to buy Christmas gifts for.
Seniors are often on this list, as are those who insist that any book they receive come from only the highest level of writing.
Then there are people fighting through difficult circumstances in their work or home lives, moments when they are under enormous pressure to lead and lead wisely, or times when they appear to be — and probably actually are — well, miserable. They need some joy in the season that’s supposed to be marked by it.
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So, here are three book recommendations for you.
The first is for seniors (and for anyone who wants to accompany a brilliant writer along a life extraordinarily well lived through the past nine decades.)
“We did not, we could not, look upon the United States as a racist, cruelly capitalistic, essentially corrupt country in need of revolutionary change. We thought, and most of us still think, that the United States, for all its flaws, is the most interesting, the most generous, the grandest country in the world.”
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For more than 40 years, the columns, essays and books by Joseph Epstein of all sorts — novels, biographies, collections of short stories, meditations on big topics like “Ambition” — have arrived in my hands and have always brought with them delight and a keen sense that there are writers and good writers and then there are genuinely gifted writers. Joseph Epstein is among the very few of the latter of the past half century. I don’t think I am alone in concluding that he is America’s greatest living essayist.
Last year, Epstein gifted us an autobiography — “Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life, Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life.” Just that pair of his sentences quoted above conveys so much about the “Silent Generation” (he was born in 1937) that you should believe me when I say every page of the book elicits a nod and often a laugh, and many offer insights about which we might have been aware but had never articulated or read. I think I read E.M. Forster’s conclusion that “You are being influenced when you say ‘I might have written that myself if I hadn’t been so busy’” in one of Epstein’s hundreds of wonderful essays.
“Wonderful” because he writes to be understood and does not hold back high knowledge of the sort that obliges you to slow down a bit and think. He will jump you with a “famous anecdote about Croesus,” for example — one about which you may never have heard — but also relay it succinctly in case you are among those who missed that story.
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Epstein entertains even as he educates, almost without exception. (The single Epstein book that did not capture me — his biography of Fred Astaire — was loved by my wife. So every Epstein book has brought me, at least indirectly, joy.)
So if you have a reader to buy for, gift them this book, which is also a memoir of our country’s collective past 80 years. If somehow Joseph Epstein has escaped your notice until now, begin here with this book, then perhaps move to his collection of short stories, “The Goldin Boys,” then dive into any of his collections of essays, common or about literature. He will become your friend.
For those earlier in their lives and careers and in positions demanding many hard and important decisions, Admiral William McRaven (USN, Ret.) has penned the perfect Christmas present this year. Admiral McRaven led a remarkable life through his decades rising to the very top of America’s special forces, beginning as — and always remaining — a Navy SEAL, but ending his distinguished career at the top of the U.S. Special Operations Command.
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The admiral has written a couple of other bestsellers, but this year’s “Conquering Crisis: Ten Lessons to Learn Before You Need Them” is a book for anyone with authority over anyone or anything — from those in the C-suite to parents, from the presidents, principals and deans of schools to the coaches of every team and leaders of volunteer organizations. The unexpected crisis is coming sooner or later for everyone in any of those situations, and Admiral McRaven’s ten lessons will stick because they are written in clear and compelling fashion, free of management jargon and ridiculous “systems speak.”
Finally, America’s professor of happiness, Arthur C. Brooks of the Harvard Business School, teaches the course on happiness for the HBS grinders and writes on the scholarship surrounding the subject (and it is vast) monthly for The Atlantic. Brooks has collected his best essays on the topic in “The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life.” Whether the person on your list who’s giving you the most trouble selecting a book is having the best of years or the worst, they will appreciate Brooks’ work.
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The beauty of finishing your shopping on Amazon or any of the other book sites online? Those books will arrive in a couple of days at your doorstep or can be sent anywhere.
You can finish your shopping in a half hour online and then enjoy the genuine glory of Christmas, free at least from gift panic.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
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