The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz.

The author left a potentially very lucrative career in banking to pursue a career in philanthropy. More specifically, she wished to bring her background in lending from banking to philanthropy, in part inspired by the success of microlending (giving small loans to poor people). She didn't do so from behind a desk, or high atop an ivory tower, but rather spent large amounts of time in Africa and other parts of the world, learning a lot of hard lessons. But all in all, she makes a pretty compelling case for the "teach a man to fish" model of philanthropy (of course, I'm not hard to convince of that -- I'd describe a fair amount of what we do at AoPS as empowering those who are willing to work).

The book, however, suffers from heavy doses of melodrama. To be sure, the people she worked with went through some horrific periods (she worked in Rwanda before the massacres, and visited again afterwards), and she also encountered inspiring people. But she clangs the reader over the head with overwrought prose about the soaring human spirit and being humbled to her core and all that. The melodrama reduces the impact of her observations -- the emotional window dressing she applies often obscures the story rather than enhances it. That said, I think if more people approached the problem of philanthropy the way she does -- empowering local people to solve problems as they see fit, not as we see fit -- then philanthropy would be much more effective.