David Brooks is on a mission. Growing up, he was solitary and emotionally reserved. His family, though they had a deep love for one another, rarely expressed it, leading Brooks to retreat into his own private world of books and ideas. He has now set out, not only to change how he relates to others, but to help his readers know and be known.

Rabbi Sharon Brous founded IKAR, a dynamic, multi-generational Jewish community striving to help its members discover healing, purpose, and connection through their ancient faith. In The Amen Effect (Penguin Random House, 2024), Brous shares the hard fought lessons she’s discovered along the way, with the hope that her experience can cast a vision not just for IKAR but for society at large, a vision that can help us bridge our differences in an increasingly fractured age.

More and more students are feeling the pressure, not just to get into a college, but to get into an elite college. In Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – And What We Can Do About It (Penguin Random House, 2023), Jennifer Breheny Wallace tracks down these students, diagnosing both where this pressure comes from and how we can help our students flourish.

In Cathonomics (Georgetown University Press, 2022), Tony Annett lays of a vision inspired by Catholic social teaching for a just and humane economy. Drawing from Aristotle, Aquinas, and several recent popes, Annett argues that concepts like human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity can provide the moral grounding necessary for an economy that goes beyond purely mathematical metrics like GDP to achieve the ultimate goal of improving human lives.

Through his vivid, poetic descriptions, Gay challenges us to cultivate a sense of mindfulness and appreciation for the beauty of the many delightful moments that surround us every day.