HUGH HEWITT: Stop procrastinating: three Christmas books that solve your Christmas gift nightmare

Running out of holiday gift ideas for those on your list? Maybe you’ve been procrastinating because some people simply have a hard time buying Christmas gifts.

Older people are often on this list, as are those who insist that any book they receive comes only from the highest level of writing.

Then there are people who struggle with difficult circumstances in their work or home lives, times when they are under enormous pressure to lead and lead wisely, or times when they seem to be – and probably actually are – miserable. They need a little joy in the season that is supposed to be marked by it.

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So here are three book recommendations for you.

The first is for seniors (and anyone who wants to accompany a brilliant writer through a life lived extraordinarily well over the past nine decades.)

“We could not view the United States as a racist, cruelly capitalist, and essentially corrupt country in need of revolutionary change. We believed, and most of us still believe, that the United States, for all its faults, is the most interesting, generous, and greatest country in the world.”

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For more than 40 years, Joseph Epstein’s columns, essays and books of all kinds — novels, biographies, collections of short stories, meditations on big subjects like “Ambition” — have come into my hands and have always brought with them joy and the acute feeling that there are writers and good writers and then there are truly gifted writers. Joseph Epstein is one of the very few of the latter in the last half century. I don’t think I’m alone in concluding that he is the greatest living American essayist.

Last year, Epstein gave us an autobiography: “Never say you had a lucky life, especially if you had a lucky life.” These two sentences quoted above say so much about the “Silent Generation” (he was born in 1937) that you should believe me when I say that every page of the book elicits a nod and often a laugh, and many offer ideas we might have been aware of but never articulated or read. I think I read EM Forster’s conclusion that “You are influenced when you say ‘I could 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 retain high knowledge which forces one to slow down a little and think. He’ll jump out at you with a “famous anecdote about Croesus,” for example – an anecdote that you could Never have heard – but also relay it succinctly in case you are one of those WHO I missed this story.

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Epstein entertains while educating, almost without exception. (The only Epstein book that didn’t captivate me – his biography of Fred Astaire – was adored by my wife. So every Epstein book has brought me, at least indirectly, joy.)

So if you have a reader to buy, give them this book, which is also a memoir of the last 80 collective years of our country. If somehow Joseph Epstein has escaped your attention until now, start here with this book, then maybe move to his collection of short stories, “The Goldin Boys,” then dive into one of his collections of essays, common or on literature. He will become your friend.

For those who are younger in their lives and careers and in positions requiring many difficult and important decisions, Admiral William McRaven (USN, Retired) has written the perfect Christmas gift this year. Admiral McRaven led a remarkable life throughout his decades, rising to the pinnacle of U.S. Special Forces, starting as — and still remaining — a Navy SEAL, but ending his distinguished career at the top of U.S. Special Operations Command.

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The admiral has written a few other bestsellers, but this year’s “Conquering the Crisis: Ten Lessons to Learn Before You Need Them” is a book for anyone with authority over anyone or anything – from senior management to parents, presidents, principals.s and deans of schools, to the coaches of each team and to the leaders of voluntary organizations. The unexpected crisis will come sooner or later for everyone in one of these situations, and Admiral McRaven’s ten lessons will stick because they are written clearly and convincingly, without management jargon and ridiculous “systems language.”

Finally, America’s professor of happiness, Arthur C. Brooks of Harvard Business School, teaches the happiness course at HBS Grinders and writes monthly about the scholarship surrounding the subject (and it is vast) for The Atlantic. Brooks has collected his best essays on the subject in “The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life.” Whether it’s the person on your list who gives you the hardest time selecting a book East having the best or worst years, they will appreciate Brooks’ work.

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The beauty of finishing your purchases on Amazon or one of the other online book sites? These books will arrive in a few days at your doorstep or can be sent anywhere.

You can finish your shopping In half an hour online, then enjoy the true glory of Christmas, without at least the gift panic.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” heard weekday afternoons from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh brings Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on more than 400 affiliates across the country and on every streaming platform where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel News Roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6 p.m. 00 ET. Hewitt has been a professor of law at the Fowler School of Law at Chapman University since 1996, where he teaches constitutional law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American newspaper, is the author of a dozen books, and has moderated about twenty debates on the Republican candidates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. 40 years of activity in the field of broadcasting.

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