Pick of the day: Stuever on the season

You know how you can hear some musicians play and immediately identify them? A few chords from Jimi Hendrix and you know it’s him. Same with Eric Clapton or Miles Davis or Mozart. Well, that’s how I feel sometimes about Hank Stuever’s writing. Read me a few graphs, and I bet I’ll be able to pick up on that unmistakable style, that voice. And now we have his book, Tinsel, from which today’s pick is excerpted. It is a story about Christmas and America but also, as he says, “our weird economy, our modern sense of home, our oft-broken hearts, and our notions of God.” Happy holidays.