But Today Is Different

In But Today Is Different, Sarah Stern's first full-length collection of poems, she explores the themes of loss, desire, the erotic, getting older in a youth-obsessed culture, and finding the mystical in the ordinary. Several poems are shaped by conversations between an enduring voice and a mortal one that asks questions. The answers are in the shared spaces of wonder about the knowable and unknowable. With wisdom, humor, and humility, Stern brings the reader to a new place of deep feeling.

Elliot lives in America, and Kailash lives in India. They are pen pals. By exchanging letters and pictures, they learn that they both love to climb trees, have pets, and go to school. Their worlds might look different, but they are actually similar. Same, same. But different! Through an inviting point-of-view and colorful, vivid illustrations, this story shows how two boys living oceans apart can be the best of friends.

“Charming pairs of human and animal characters celebrate their similarities and differences...Entertaining.” —Kirkus Reviews I am me, you are you. We’re the same, but different too. There’s something about each of us that makes us special. But while everyone is unique, we all have many things in common as well. Explore the ways that we are all the same but different, too, in this joyful and simple celebration of individuality and camaraderie. Filled with children and their animal friends, this rhyming text illuminates the wonderfully different and similar things that make us who we are.

A Day Like Any Other But Different From The Others, is a story about a young man looking for happiness, when life challenges him by creating a disruption in his life to help him understand and get what he has been looking for. And in looking for ways to find balance again in his life and to solve the challenges that life has put before him, he will climb the emotional scale from powerlessness and anger to discouragement and frustration back to insecurity and finally to appreciation. In that infernal cycle from failing to getting back up, he will learn different things that will turn out to be valuable for him in the future.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

I am excited about the potential energy this book may generate. I have spoken with and interviewed people throughout the country in both metropolitan and rural populations. Their participation and responses have been immeasurably favorable. The majority of responses elevated my enthusiasm to indescribable heights. Because of their curiosity and extraordinary observation similarities of ethnic idiosyncrasies that paralleled years of my observation experiences, I was inclined to share what I and others have consistently discerned for your interpretation. This book focuses on African-Americans and Caucasians unique and profound dissimilarities. It is what it is, pros and cons. This discernible fact compelled me to note and list (for entertainment purposes) the dissimilarities and all of which you may be quite familiar. This book will spark perhaps duel mind sets conceivably one being innately positive and the other predictably pessimistic. I welcome both perspectives. I believe it will attract constructive dialogue that may possibly facilitate a better understanding of the two ethnic demographics.

Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan offers an insightful exploration into the experiences of Japanese members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shedding light on their integration of religious identity within a predominantly non-Christian society. Through comprehensive survey data collected from active practitioners, authors Shinji Takagi, Conan Grames, and Meagan Rainock delve into the challenges and opportunities these Latter-day Saints face. In doing so, they examine the diverse social, political, and ideological backgrounds of Japanese Latter-day Saints, providing valuable insights for scholars, missionaries, Church leaders, and members alike. With meticulous analysis, the authors navigate topics ranging from personal conversion experiences to religious beliefs and adherence to cultural practices. They examine how Japanese Latter-day Saints successfully negotiate identity conflicts and contribute to the broader societal landscape amidst Japan's evolving cultural institutions. Offering statistical profiles and key findings tailored to various stakeholders, Unique But Not Different serves as an indispensable resource for understanding the complex dynamics of religious identity and acculturation in Japan, while also providing valuable insights applicable to minority religious practices worldwide. For Japanese readers, the volume also includes a Japanese Afterword and translations of the summary, findings, tables, and figures.

Liberal democratic societies with diverse populations generally offer minorities two usually contradictory objectives: the first is equal integration and participation; the second is an opportunity, within limits, to retain their culture. Yet Canadian Jews are successfully integrated into all domains of Canadian life, while at the same time they also seem able to retain their distinct identities by blending traditional religious values and rituals with contemporary cultural options. Like Everyone Else but Different illustrates how Canadian Jews have created a space within Canada's multicultural environment that paradoxically overcomes the potential dangers of assimilation and diversity. At the same time, this comprehensive and data-driven study documents and interprets new trends and challenges including rising rates of intermarriage, newer progressive religious options, finding equal space for women and LGBTQ Jews, tensions between non-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews, and new forms of real and perceived anti-Semitism often related to Israel or Zionism, on campus and elsewhere. The striking feature of the Canadian Jewish community is its diversity. While this diversity can lead to cases of internal conflict, it also offers opportunities for adaptation and survival. Seventeen years after its first publication, this new edition of Like Everyone Else but Different provides definitive updates that blend research studies, survey and census data, newspaper accounts and articles, and the author's personal observations and experiences to provide an informative, provocative, and fascinating account of Jewish life and multiculturalism in contemporary Canada.