PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Building Character and Culture
Pat Duffy Hutcheon
The most outstanding aspects of the author's work are its clarity and its courage, together with an astonishing amount of knowledge and insight into the development of character, both in young children from the first day onward, and through a person's entire lifetime.


Callings
Gregg Levoy
Callings is a passionate exploration of the search for authenticity, whether at work or at home, in our relationships or in service. In a style that is poetic, exuberant and keenly insightful, Levoy breathes contemporary life into the ancient subject of callings, presenting an illuminating and practical inquiry into how we listen and respond to our calls, and translate them into action.


Creating The Work You Love: Courage, Commitment, and Career
Rick Jarow
Your life is a work of art; a craft to be most carefully mastered. For patience has replaced time; and you are your own destination.


Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
This classic best seller is considered to be one of the most important contributions to psychiatry since the writing of Freud. In it, Dr. Frankl gives a moving account of his experience in Nazi concentration camps, from which he developed a modern and positive approach to understanding human motivation and capacities. Frankl deeply believes in one’s ability to transcend suffering and find a meaning to life regardless of his circumstances.


Meaning - The Secret of Being Alive
Cliff Havener


Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success
Harold S. Kushner
Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, outlines a common human struggle between the need to feel successful and the need to think of oneself as a good person. Indeed, he relates, the biblical Jacob wrestled with the impulse to succeed through cleverness and fraud, and "to become someone exemplary." While the subtitle might be challenged can't success be more a matter of dedication than ruthlessness? Kushner's wide-ranging, occasionally meandering book fortunately focuses more on the basic question of a meaningful life.


Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential
Carolyn Myss
This fascinating book espouses the ancient notion that our souls enter into a kind of contract before birth that we agree to have various human experiences and even to encounter certain people in order to learn lessons. Myss includes a technique for understanding 12 archetypes that rule different areas of our life from career to relationships to our highest aspirations.


The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness
Gary Zukav and Linda Francis
Asserting that "our species is undergoing an unprecedented transformation," Zukav (The Seat of the Soul; Soul Stories) urges people to focus not on "external power" but on "authentic power," and to seek to align their personalities with their souls.

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The Virtues Project Educator's Guide: Simple Ways to Create a Culture of Character
Linda Kavelin Popov
The Virtues Project was honored by the United Nations during the International Year of the Family as a model global program for all cultures, and was featured on the Oprah Show as a method for teaching children to “do the right thing.” This long awaited guide for counselors, teachers, caregivers, and youth leaders offers a wealth of character awakening activities and ideas for bringing out the best in your students and yourself.


The Children's Book of Virtues
William J. Bennett (Editor)
Ages 4-8. Using portions of his best-selling adult work Book of Virtues, former secretary of education William Bennett teams up with artist Michael Hague to create a collection of stories, poems, and fables in a format more suitable for children. Noting in his introduction that his goal is to further the "moral education of the young," Bennett has chosen selections to illustrate 10 virtues, which he further divides into four groups, among them, courage/perseverance and compassion/faith.


Building Moral Intelligence:
The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing
Michele Borba Ed.D., Ed.D., Michele Borba
Writing with confident authority and providing good, current references, Borba offers "a step by step blueprint for enhancing your child's moral capacity" the ethical compass that charts a youngster's moral fate. She first defines seven intertwining "essential virtues of moral intelligence and solid character": empathy, conscience, self-control (these first three form a "moral core"), respect, kindness, tolerance, and fairness.


The Family Virtues Guide: Simple Ways to Bring Out the Best in Our Children and Ourselves
Linda Kavelin Popov
Through a collection of fifty-two virtues, one for each week of the year, Popov instructs parents how to teach morals and ethics to their young children, including such values as trust, caring, humility, and generosity.


The Values Book: Teaching Sixteen Basic Values to Young Children
Tamera Bryant
Citing circumstances within our culture and environment that are creating changes in behavior, this book offers teachers and parents quick, straightforward ideas for raising children's awareness, understanding, and experience of 16 basic values, including tolerance, honesty, patience, and cooperation.


365 Ways to Develop Your Child's Values
Cheri Fuller


20 Teachable Virtues:
Practical Ways to Pass on Lessons of Virtue and Character to Your Children
Barbara C. Unell, Jerry L. Wyckoff (Editor)
This book provides parents with the tools to instill character in their children--through caring, communication and example. Includes chapters on empathy, helpfulness, fairness, caring, courage, respect, loyalty, and much more.


Books That Build Character: A Guide to Teaching Your Child Moral Values Through Stories
William Kilpatrick, et al
Here is a family guide to classic novels, contemporary fiction, myths and legends, science fiction and fantasy, folktales, Bible stories, picture books, biographies, holiday stories, and many other books that celebrate virtues and values. There are more than 300 titles to choose from, each featuring a dramatic story and memorable characters who explore moral ground and the difference between what is right and what is wrong.


Upbringing
James B. Stenson
This book's advice and insight are invaluable for any parent trying to raise children in this culture. Jim goes right to the heart of the Christian vocation - and it is a moving experience to read this and realize how serious is the role of a parent.


A Call to Character
Colin Greer (Editor), Herbert Kohl (Editor)
A family treasury of stories, poems, plays, proverbs, and fables to guide the development of values for you and your children.


Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong
William K. Kilpatrick
For parents, educators, and policymakers, Kilpatrick's hard-hitting and controversial book will not only open eyes but change minds. He maintains that by stressing "feelings" rather than good behavior, schools and parents have failed to instill moral values in our youth.


Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination
Vigen Guroian
Guroian is a theologian who believes that the great Western fairy tales and literary fantasies can teach children to be good. He speaks as parent and teacher as much as minister. Above all, he is a reader: he knows that a good story can do far more than hours of hectoring and sermonizing to move children with the drama of good and evil. He discusses Pinocchio, The Snow Queen, Beauty and the Beast, C. S. Lewis' Narnia series, and other classics with sensitivity and depth. However, his message is simplistic: children must learn that good and evil are absolutes, and the choice is clear; enough of this contemporary moral relativism; enough of subjectivity and cultural differences.


Ways to Grow: 101 Virtue-Building Devotions
Eldon Weisheit
Having faith can be a difficult concept to explain to children, but these 101 virtue-building devotions will help. Use these true-to-life stories to talk with your children about real-life issues and end with prayer for such things as guidance, honesty, and patience.


Garden of Virtues: Planting Seeds of Goodness
Christina Keffler, et al


Speaking to the Heart : A Father's Guide to Growth in Virtue
Stephen Gabriel
In this book the author looks at twenty character traits that are important to the lives of a father and his children. They are loosely based on the classic virtues of Catholic tradition. They include the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity -- so-called because they are integral to establishing an intimate relationship with almighty God. They also include the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. These are cardinal virtues because they are the fundamental human virtues that must be acquired to reach any level of human perfection. All the other human virtues flow from these. Other human virtues that our children need include humility, poverty, chastity, and industriousness, just to name a few.


Love Your Neighbor: Stories of Values and Virtues
Arthur Dobrin, Jacqueline Rogers (Illustrator)
Attractive watercolors of anthropomorphic animals accompany thirteen fables of varying quality. Some of the protagonists do good deeds for their friends and neighbors, while others learn lessons the hard way. An introductory note to parents and a question at the end of each tale encourage discussion; this emphasis on the moral implications takes the joy out of the animals' escapades.


A Young Child's Garden of Christian Virtues: Imaginative Ways to Plant God's Word in Toddlers' Hearts
Susan Lawrence
This book offers 100 hands-on devotions that plant the seed of Scripture and godly behavior in young children. Each devotion helps parents illustrate God's truth through commonplace objects and ideas. Then the whole family has fun exploring and applying God's word through hands-on learning .


Talks to Boys: Classic Teachings on Virtues and Values
Eleanor A. Hunter
Originally published in the late 1800s by the American Tract Society, Talks To Boys gives readers a glimpse into what it was like to grow up one hundred years ago. Each short essay addresses a different virtue or value and includes questions to help spark thought and discussion.


A Child's Garden of Virtues
Peg Augustine (Compiler), Teresa Harper (Illustrator)

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PHILOSOPHIC

After Virtue : A Study in Moral Theory
Alasdair MacIntyre


Conscience and Other Virtues: From Bonaventure to MacIntyre
Douglas C. Langston
An effort to revitalize the idea of conscience for modern moral thinking. "This important book synthesizes a broad range of historical and contemporary literature dealing with conscience. It traces the development of the notion of conscience in the Western philosophical tradition from antiquity through the early modern period, and it rehabilitates conscience as a useful, even crucial, concept for current ethical theory."


Treatise on the Virtues
Saint Thomas Aquinas, John A. Oesterle (Translator)


How Should One Live?: Essays on the Virtues
Roger Crisp (Editor)
This specially commissioned articles by an international team of philosophers represent the state of the art in this subject and will set the agenda for future work in the area. The contributors--including Lawrence Blum, John Cottingham, Julia Driver, Rosalind Hursthouse, Terence Irwin, Susan Moller Okin, Onora O'Neill, Michael Slote, Michael Stocker, and David Wiggins--cover practical virtue ethics, ancient views of the virtues, impartiality and partiality, Kant, utilitarianism, human nature, natural and artificial virtues, virtue and the good life, the vices, emotions, politics, feminism, moral education, and community.


Socrates' Education to Virtue: Learning the Love of the Noble
Mark J. Lutz


Vices, Virtues, and Consequences
Peter Phillips Simpson
Essays in Moral and Political Philosophy (Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, Vol. 35)


Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues
Alasdair MacIntyre
With characteristic originality and insight, Alasdair MacIntyre explores the nature of practical rationality in the light of our human vulnerability and mutual dependence. Two themes, arising from our animal nature, frame the discussion: the continuities between human beings and other species, and the pervasiveness of human disability.


Virtue Ethics (Oxford Reading in Philosophy)
Roger Crisp and Michael Slote (Editors)
This volume brings together much of the most influential work undertaken in the field of virtue ethics over the last four decades. The ethics of virtue predominated in the ancient world, and recent moral philosophy has seen a revival of interest in virtue ethics as a rival to Kantian and utilitarian approaches to morality. Divided into four sections, the collection includes articles critical of other traditions; early attempts to offer a positive vision of virtue ethics; some later criticisms of the revival of virtue ethics; and, finally, some recent, more theoretically ambitious essays in virtue ethics.


Small Treatise on Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life
Andre Comte-Sponville
The analysis of 18 virtues naturally focuses on foundational attributes such as justice and generosity, especially within the context of twenty-firstcentury expectations. Yet, again and again, the great moral philosophers of the past--Aristotle and Plato, Hume and Montaigne--speak up, shredding the smug complacency of modernity. And although he himself disavows any religious belief, ComteSponville opens the door to pious thinkers--from Saint Paul to Simone Weil--who see in mortal virtues a partial reflection of God's immortal goodness.


Virtue Ethics: A Critical Reader
Daniel Statman


Moral Wisdom and Good Lives
John Kekes
Kekes argues in this finely crafted book that moral wisdom is the most important virtue for human beings today. In the absence of a generally shared conception of Good, each of us must devise his or her own plan for a good life. To achieve one's plan is no easy task, and to confront the obstacles that inevitably ensue, wisdom is essential. This virtue consists, Kekes thinks, of three modes: moral imagination, self-knowledge, and moral depth.


Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge
Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski


Ockham on the Virtues (History of Philosophy Series)
Rega Wood and William De Connexione Virtutum


The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness
Epictetus, Sharon Lebell
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus was born on the eastern edges of the Roman Empire in A.D. 55, but The Art of Living is still perfectly suited for any contemporary self-help or recovery program. To prove the point, this modern interpretation by Sharon Lebell casts the teachings in up-to-date language, with phrases like "power broker" and "casual sex" popping up intermittently. But the core is still the same: Epictetus keeps the focus on progress over perfection, on accomplishing what can be accomplished and abandoning unproductive worry over what cannot.


Virtues of Authenticity
Alexander Nehamas
The eminent philosopher and classical scholar Alexander Nehamas presents here a collection of his most important essays on Plato and Socrates. The papers are unified in theme by the idea that Plato's central philosophical concern in metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics was to distinguish the authentic from the fake, the original from its imitations. In approach, the collection displays Nehamas's characteristic combination of analytical rigor and sensitivity to the literary form and dramatic effect of Plato's work. Together, the papers represent Nehamas's distinct and original contributions to scholarship on Plato and Socrates and serve as a comprehensive introduction to the thought of these two philosophers.

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Back to Virtue
Peter Kreeft
This in-depth analysis of the meaning of the virtues and their connection with the Beatitudes also summarizes a scriptural and theological wisdom on leading a holy life. Includes the accumulated wisdom of St. Paul, C.S. Lewis, and many others.


Four Cardinal Virtues
Josef Pieper
This collection of works on the four cardinal virtues brings out the classical meanings of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. It also clearly explains the vices surrounding the virtues. It is a clear summary of classical thought on the virtues from Aristolte, Plato, Augustine and Aquinas. Very interesting digrestions on prudence and fortitude.


The Inner Life of Jesus
Romano Guardini
Guardini cuts through the saturnine sentamentalism that surrounds the figure of Jesus and gives a serious examination of His life, deeds, and personality. Each chapter is a meditation on a certain aspect of Jesus that contains great insight into His inner life and highlights particular things that are often missed by those who read the Gospels.


The Promise of Virtue
Eugene Hemrick and Scott Appleby
A wonderful meditation in which author, Gene Hemrick, identifies and introduces readers to such virtues as humor, kindness, understanding, respect, courage, clear-sightedness, and silence. But this book is more than simply a meditation. Hemrick puts a face on virtue and argues that people must reflect virtue for the common good. The author vividly articulates the good that will come from practicing virtue when people integrate it into their lives and relationships.


The Virtues of an Authentic Life: A Celebration of Spiritual Maturity
Bernard Haring and Peter Heinegg
A beloved theologian shares his views on the undertones of spiritual maturity. In these short and personal essays, Bernard Haring discusses the components of moral competence. Haring sees the achievement of virtue as a holistic endeavor concerned with the entire personality in the context of its human relationships.


Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes
Gordon Bitner Hinckley
Chapter by chapter Hinckley presents 10 old-fashioned virtues that will return America to the glory envisioned by its founding fathers. These virtues include Love, Honesty, Morality, Civility, Learning, Forgiveness, Thrift and Industry, Gratitude, Optimism, and Faith.


The Catholic Virtues: Seven Pillars of a Good Life
Mitch Finley


Faith, Hope, Love
Josef Pieper
This volume, three separate books in one edition, is a collection of Josef Pieper's famous treatises on the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. Pieper is perhaps the most popular Thomist philosopher of the twentieth century.


Learning the Virtues That Lead You to God
Romano Guardini


God's Treasury of Virtues
This book is your family's complete handbook of distinctively Christian values. Wherever you open this book, you'll find timeless stories and life-changing wisdom.


The Glorious Pursuit: Embracing the Virtues of Christ
Gary Thomas
Some books merit a browse, some a ransack. The Glorious Pursuit merits the later. It's focus is giving practical guidance -- a track to run on, to those whose deepest yearning is to be forged into the likeness and image of God. Practical, helpful, and rooted in both sound exegesis and historical precedent.


Who You Are When No One's Looking
William Hybels and Bill Hybels
We are all at our best when it counts. But what are we like when no one's looking? That's where character comes in--being consistent even when it doesn't seem to matter.


Becoming Good: Building Moral Character
David W. Gill
Becoming good--building character--is what we all want for ourselves and for others. But where do we begin? Becoming good is not simply a matter a few dos and don'ts. In fact we can't begin to do the right things until we have built an adequate foundation. This is what David Gill sets out to help us do.


Hildegard Von Bingen's Mystical Visions: Translated from Scivias
Transl. Bruce W. Hozeski

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