Yet gift giving can be difficult--and not necessarily because we lack generosity. Sometimes it's simply hard to know what to give. When so many of us are awash in material goods, it is a challenge because it seems everyone has everything.

Books are a gift that says I care about the mind or heart of a friend or family member. Another guideline I have used is to give something that is unique or consumable. Because the consumable gift is used up, it does not add to our unnecessary accumulation of things. The unique gift may be something we make or is an expression of who we are.

I have a friend who writes poetry and gives his crafted words to friends and family. Framing your own photograph is another gift that could not be found anywhere else. Gifts can also be as simple as a fruit basket, a specialty coffee, letter stationary or even baked goods--which double as unique (not mass produced but handmade) and consumable.

The irony of a consumer society is that it diminishes the value of giving gifts. But it is possible to resist these forces, and at the same time, follow the wise men in a spirit of generosity and love.

Merry Christmas to all.

Music, videos and news have been digitized, and which has sent those industries into chaos. And all sorts of other information have been digitized and liberated on the Internet for the greater good of the planet--at the ability of content providers to make a living, which ultimately has a negative effect on new content produced and so a negative effect on the planet. But I digress.

What is a publisher to do?

Publish goats.

Goats can't be digitized. Sure, you can have a digital picture of a goat, just as you can have digital picture of an unplugged toilet. But the picture does you little good if your actual toilet is stopped up.

Likewise, a picture of a goat is no substitute for an actual goat, which produces milk, climbs on sheds, eats all manner of weeds and eventually can supply you with a summerful of yummy BBQ.

I mentioned this to a colleague from another publisher (though I am not normally in the habit of divulging such lucrative trade secrets). He replied, "Yes, but what's the market for goats?"

Doh!

That's the question Malcolm Gladwell sets himself to in Outliers. The answer he finds is, often, none of these. To make his point, Gladwell compares Christopher Langan to Robert Oppenheimer.

Why? Oppenheimer's family and cultural background allowed him to absorb as if by osmosis not only a sense of entitlement but the instincts needed to move successfully among powerful, rich, talented people. Langan had none of that.

Or take Korean Air pilots, whose planes crashed at an alarmingly high rate in the 1990s, even though their planes and their training were world class. Why? The Korean culture of deference to authority made it nearly impossible for the rest of the crew to tell the pilot he was making an error. Once the culture of the flight deck was changed through intense training, the crashes stopped.

Or take professional Canadian hockey players, whose birthdays are disproportionately found in January through April. Those whose birthdays are September through December are hard to come by. Why? January 1 is the cutoff for each level of play from the earliest ages. So players born in January are almost a year older than those born in December. Of course they will do better than the younger players, and these are the ones who will be advanced to the higher levels--year after year. Most kids at age eight have no chance to outplay someone a year older and bigger.

So back to Gladwell's question. Why do some succeed and some don't? Usually it is because of cultural background or social structures. We love the romantic myth that anyone can be anything if you just try hard. But the reality is that most people who succeed have had the playing field tipped in their favor through no doing of their own.

What does it mean?

Why consolidation now? The number of Christian and general trade bookstores has been on decline for several years. The economy in general is stumbling toward recovery. Reading levels are declining very slowly. Sales of digital books have not generally made up the shortfall in traditional print sales.

This is clearly not the optimum time to start a new publishing house. But if you want to stay in the game, it is time to increase economies of scale. And the new HarperCollins/Zondervan/Nelson/Harper One behemoth certainly has scale. For other publishers, it means finding ways to stay close to readers, keep them loyal and be more efficient. It means being smarter.

In Moneyball Billy Beane tells his scouts for the Oakland Athletics that they can't win at the Yankees' game since they spend five times more on player salaries than the Athletics do. So he plays a different game, finding unknown players with an uncanny ability to get on base.

There's an analogy there, somewhere.

In 1879 he bought and merged the St. Louis Dispatch and the St. Louis Post, creatively naming the combined enterprise the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Later he bought The New York World. Journalistic crusades against corruption became his hallmark. Most famously he uncovered a fraudulent $40 million payment by the U.S. government to the French Panama Canal Company. The government lodged a suit against him, accusing him of libeling President Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The courts dismissed the suit, and Pulitzer was hailed as a hero.

Besides the Pulitzer Prize which he established in his will, he also left behind some choice bits of wisdom and advice for the world of publishing which still ring true today:

• A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.

• An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.

• I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people.

• Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.

• There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away. Publicity may not be the only thing that is needed, but it is the one thing without which all other agencies will fail.

So thank you, Hungary, for enriching us with your immigrants.

Steve Evans recalled how Art communicated that philosophy was not to be merely an intellectual pursuit but involved the whole person. He had an uncanny ability to enter the mind of whatever philosopher he taught about, expressing that person's thoughts in the most winsome and compelling way he could. There were no straw men in Art's world. As Roger Lundin put it, he never spoke of those he disagreed with in the dismissive way that comes so easily to us in our jaded days.

Art's sons and eldest grandson gave tribute too to a father and mentor. He was the first to jump into a cold Minnesota lake for a swim and the one who could hardly get through a prayer at any meal without tears in his eyes. He taught them that life has purpose, the importance of discipline, the need to pay attention to detail and what a real marriage looks like. Art's wife, Alice, was the love of his life as well as his partner, critic and greatest supporter.

At IVP, of course, we knew Art as the author of a number of important books. We were privileged to reprint All Truth Is God's Truth in 1983 after its first life came to a close with Eerdmans. We also published one of his first books, Christianity and Philosophy, in 1963, later revised as Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. His book Ethics in the Contours of Christian Philosophy series (developed by Steve Evans), is still selling vigorously in its second edition. It will continue to teach and mentor even further generations of students, living on as Art's influence continues to live on in the lives of so many that he marked so deeply.