75 books like The Givers

Our love for humanity – which is how “philanthropy” is defined – is rooted in our sense of morality. 

Adam Smith explains that morality is not driven only by reason, but is built into us because we are social beings. To understand philanthropy, therefore, I think we need a grounding in how and why we want to help others.  This book explores that desire, or need, to empathize. 

Smith says that when we see people happy or sad, we feel happy or sad too, that we derive pleasure when people do things we approve of. Even though The Theory of Moral Sentiments is almost three centuries old, it teaches us much about why nonprofits can be successful in the modern world.

In Uncharitable Dan Pallotta challenges the way most people think about charity. 

Many people have been told that the less charities spend on overhead, fundraising, and salaries, the better the charities are. But this is not a healthy way to understand a charity’s impact, and Uncharitable refutes this myth. 

Pallotta describes what he calls an “economic apartheid,” a mindset that denies charities the critical tools that the for-profit sector is allowed to use without restraint: incentives to take risks, counterproductive limits on compensation, and moral objections to the use of donated dollars for anything other than program expenditures. 

I like this book not because Pallotta has a fully fleshed-out roadmap to energize the nonprofit sector, but because he is one of the few to articulate important problems facing the sector.

After reading Winners Take All, we might be forgiven for being worried about the role philanthropy plays in society.  Anand Giridharadas’s central argument is that donors – defined not as the average annual supporter of a charity, but as those with millions, and more, to give – do not so much change society for the better, but use their wealth to maintain the status quo. 

He says that instead of helping the poor, donations support policies, in the nonprofit arena, that uphold and even increase donors’ own wealth and status. In that regard, he reflects upon Oscar Wilde’s observation that those who do the most harm are those who try to do the most good. 

Rob Reich, a professor at Stanford University – in observing that we are living in a second gilded age – directly addresses whether the philosophy of philanthropy is in opposition to democracy. 

He answers, with several qualifications, that it very well could be.  He sets it up in the following way: Is philanthropy – the support of privately funded causes that affect society, often in profound ways – an individual act or a social policy? 

He views the question through that prism, of social policy, and concludes that philanthropy “is not just a matter of private morality,” but is “a matter of public morality.”  Just Giving appeals to me because of its comprehensive approach to an issue – the private support of our nation’s charitable organizations – that, while ubiquitous in society, has received too little attention. 

There are many ways to approach history. Donna Lucey brilliantly chose to usher readers into the world of the Gilded Age via the captivating canvases of that era’s most sought-after portraitist, John Singer Sargent. There are always more stories lurking behind Sargent’s luxurious depictions of his subjects, and Lucey gets beneath the paint and the posing to give us her own picture of four very real women whose lives are far more nuanced than any portrait sitting can convey.

So much of the early presidency took place out of “office hours.” Social events where women were present were considered apolitical and non-partisan, but of course, women had just as many opinions about politics back in the Early Republic as they do today! Instead, these events served as helpful venues for brokering deals, arranging political marriages, and securing appointments for friends and family members. Wives were also essential partners in campaigns and coalition-building once politicians were in office. You can’t understand the early presidents without understanding the broader social context as well.

I loved this book and the movie. The attention to detail was wonderful, and the butler’s relationship with the housekeeper was spot-on for the period. I could really relate to the butler, being one myself, and to his loyalty to his employer. The only quibble I had was that the butler didn’t say anything when he was asked for his opinion. I understood why he didn’t, but you are rarely asked, so you have to speak up when given the opportunity. It's just a great book!

Whistleblowers rely on the press to disseminate their disclosures. In matters of national security, however, the press has a long history of close personal and professional bonds with the government that has curbed revelations. The Georgetown Set offers a fascinating glimpse into the small circle of elite officials, journalists, publishers, and public intellectuals who gathered for cocktail and dinner parties in their high-end neighborhood of Washington, DC. In addition to giving a fly-on-the-wall sense of how Cold War policies and public opinion were made, Herken’s book illuminates the individual and cultural shifts that contributed to the rise of national security disclosures in the 1960s and 1970s. This history is essential for understanding how the evolving dynamics between elite politicians and the press continue to shape the culture of whistleblowing and accountability today.

Jane Austen is unparalleled in her depiction of good and evil on a domestic level. While the situations are slightly less dramatic than in the other books I have selected, Mansfield Park compellingly presents the consequences of habituated action. Fanny Price is not perfect and certainly not most people’s cup of tea, but, like all Austen heroines, represents virtue and a growing self-knowledge over the course of the novel. The Crawford siblings are vivid examples of dulled moral vision. Without committing the literary sin of giving away the end, I will say that the “anti-romance” trajectory of the plot is wonderfully satisfying. Further, Sir Thomas Bertram may be my favorite male Austen character of all.

And you thought your family was crazy! Set in Malaysia, this fascinating story combines family drama with class issues, ethnic tensions, the effects of colonial rule, and even ghosts. I love how writer Preeta Samarasan evokes a mysterious, almost magical feel to the setting and characters, as the reader gets acquainted with the wealthy, yet deeply dysfunctional family at the center of the story. No matter how bitter, enraging, or disappointing these characters feel towards each other, they are still bonded together, and the story ends on a hopeful note. This family can redeem itself-even if it takes moving to another country to do it.