Gifts from the desert: the origins and history of the vices tradition -- Envy: feeling bitter when others have it better -- Vainglory: image is everything -- Sloth: resistance to the demands of love -- Avarice: I want it all -- Anger: holy emotion or hellish passion? -- Gluttony: feeding your face and starving your heart -- Lust: smoke, fire, and ashes

Contemporary culture trivializes, psychologizes, or even dismisses the seven vices as if they have no serious moral or spiritual implications. Glittering Vices clears that misconception with a brief history of the vices and an informative chapter on each "deadly sin." Readers gain practical understanding of how the vices shape our culture and why gluttony, lust, sloth, and others are, in fact, incredibly destructive. --from publisher description