Gifts that keep on giving

Books | WORLD 2007 interviewees list books they'd like to give or receive on Christmas (thereabouts) | Marvin Olasky

Some people think Princeton professor Peter Singer monstrous for his support of infanticide and other horrors, but in personal practice he's a family man. Asked what books he would like to give or get this Christmas, he wrote WORLD that he's "happy to get, or give, presents on Christmas. In my family, we've always had a tree at Christmas, and in the morning the children rush to the tree to see what presents are under it. For us, it's a cultural festival, not a religious one (and the decorated tree has pagan origins, I've been told)."

Singer then became specific: "If I had religious friends to whom I give presents, I'd give them Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I hope it would challenge them, and if they have any sense of humor, it should entertain them. If I had any friends who have not read Jane Austen, I'd give them Pride and Prejudice. It's a delight in every respect, to which you can go back again and again."