Amy A. Kass

The Perfect Gift aims to cultivate and enlighten our philanthropic imagination. It addresses us all as present and future philanthropists-as human beings who give, serve, and seek to promote the well-being of others. It suggests that we are continually confronted with choices about giving, and offers literary selections intended to help us reflect more seriously on these choices.Editor Amy A. Kass has gathered an intriguing and inspiring collection of readings from many cultures, genres, and time periods. Classical literature, philosophy, and religion are well represented, but so are contemporary and popular writing. The Perfect Gift draws from the works of Aristotle, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, C. S. Lewis, Alexis de Tocqueville, Martin Luther King, P. G. Wodehouse, and Shel Silverstein, among others. Kass's thoughtful introductions guide reflection on when, why, how, to whom, and what we should give.

The Philanthropic Imagination in Poetry and Prose

The Perfect Gift

Leon Kass

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It addresses important questions that emerge not from theory, but from practice: Why marry? Is this love? How can I find and win the right one to marry? What about sex? Why a wedding and the promises of marriage? What can married life be like? Using readings taken mainly from classic texts of Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Aquinas, Erasmus, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Austen, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Miss Manners, and many others, this collection challenges our unexamined opinions, expands our sympathies, elevates our gaze. It offers a higher kind of sex education, one that prepares hearts and minds for romance leading to lasting marriage. and introduces us to possibilities open to human beings in everyday life that may be undreamt of in our current philosophizing.

Readings on Courting and Marrying

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar

A wide-ranging anthology on the goals of philanthropic gift giving

Readings for Thoughtful Philanthropists

Giving Well, Doing Good

Leon R. Kass

Diana Schaub

"A stupendous compilation of the best things said by and to Americans . . . [I] open it every night at random and always find something valuable." --Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal "Indispensable . . . Should become The Book of Virtues for patriots." --Mona Charen, nationally syndicated columnist Concerned about rising cynicism and apathy, more and more Americans lament the decline in patriotic feeling and civic engagement. Fortunately, this wonderfully rich anthology is here to help all Americans realize more deeply--and appreciate more fully--who they are as citizens of the United States. At once inspiring and thought provoking, What So Proudly We Hail explores American identity, character, and civic life using the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song. Editors Amy Kass, Leon Kass, and Diana Schaub--acclaimed scholars who among them have more than a century of teaching experience--have assembled dozens of selections by our country's greatest writers and leaders, from Mark Twain to John Updike, from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt, from Willa Cather to Flannery O'Connor, from Benjamin Franklin to Martin Luther King Jr., from Francis Scott Key to Irving Berlin. Featuring the editors' insightful and instructive commentary, What So Proudly We Hail illuminates our national identity, the American creed, the American character, and the virtues and aspirations of active citizenship. This marvelous book will spark much-needed discussion and reflection in living rooms, classrooms, and reading groups everywhere.

Amy A. Kass

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