Marietta McCarty is assistant professor of philosophy at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville and author of the New York Times bestseller Little Big Minds: Sharing Philosophy with Kids. Anyone who studied philosophy in college knows that it is a real challenge to make this material relevant to everyday life. McCarty has taken on that challenge, and she comes through with flying colors. In the opening pages, she defines philosophy as clear-thinking and then goes on to suggest ways to set up a philosophy club to talk about "meaningful topics that are central to good living."

This rewarding and eclectic paperback is divided into ten chapters with substantive material by various philosophers, thinkers, and spiritual teachers:

1. Simplicity (Epicurus and Charlotte Joko Beck)
2. Communication (Karl Jaspers and Gloria Anzaldua)
3. Perspective (Bertrand Russell and Mary Wollstonecraft)
4. Flexibility (Socrates, Plato, and Alan Watts)
5. Empathy (the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King, Jr.)
6. Individuality (Jean-Paul Sartre and Elizabeth Spelman)
7. Belonging (Albert Camus and Rita Manning)
8. Serenity (Epictetus and Lao Tzu)
9. Possibility (John Stuart Mill and Simone de Beauvoir)
10. Joy (Shunryu Suzuki and Jane Addams)

It is immensely pleasing to read these philosophers as they reflect upon beauty, materialism, gratitude, self-improvement, love, relationships, and the quest for meaning and truth. Each chapter also includes discussion questions and ways to broaden the conversation with references to the 10 major themes in poems, music, theatre, and film. For example in the chapter on Belonging, McCarty includes references and thoughts on the novel The Namesake, Robert Penn Warren's story A Place to Come To, Khaled Hoseini's novel The Kite Runner, Carson McCullers's play The Member of the Wedding, the film Another Road Home, and music by Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, and Franz Schubert. We found this creative use of a variety of resources to be helpful as an enrichment tool when we were expanding upon our own study of the 37 spiritual practices in the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy.