Author Barbara Cole, Ph.D., was once gifted a sweater from an unknown Costa Rican lawyer who had been vacationing in the house next door; the lawyer overdid the shopping and couldn’t fit the sweater in her luggage to take back home. That gift turned out to be much larger than the sweater because it led Cole to do some serious thinking about gifts she had received and given over the years. Her extended trek into gifting led her to explore the history of gifting, gift giving in other cultures, the practice of regifting, the strategy of gifting, and how to handle receiving gifts that are totally unexpected or even painful. Cole’s book is itself a gift, a reflection on the virtues of giving and receiving, an admission of the stress often associated with gift giving, and a peak into the element of surprise associated with gifting. Cole shows us what we all know to be true: be they cheap and gaudy or expensive and luxurious, there’s more to a gift than what meets the eye.

LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays