Welcome to my second collection of short stories. Why have I called it Similar Differences? Because… well, we're all similar, and we're all different. As they say, we are all unique, just like everyone else. Our base personalities are moulded and refined by our circumstances and the people we meet, leading to very different life journeys. With every decision we make the path forks anew.Here you will meet children playing dressing up, a single mother meeting the father of her son, a...

Keep students engaged and actively learning with focused, relevant discussionSecond only to lecture as the most widely used instructional strategy, there's no better method than classroom discussion to actively engage students with course material. Most faculty are not aware that there is an extensive body of research on the topic from which instructors can learn to facilitate exceptional classroom discussion. Discussion in the College Classroom is a pract...

The Introduction to Sociology course is usually the first contact that students have with the discipline of sociology. This course can determine whether students take other sociology courses or learn to use sociology in their lives as adults and citizens.First Contact identifies important issues facing instructors in introducing students to the sociological imagination. Drawing on the literature of teaching and learning in sociology and higher education more broadly, F...

Art galleries and casinos, mansions and brothels, billionaires and thieves—only the world’s #1 bestselling author, James Patterson, could create a triple-cross this decadent and suspenseful.Imagine everyone’s surprise when Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart’s Abnormal Psychology class, posts on Instagram that he plans to kill himself. 24 hours later and still no one has seen him. Release the hounds. A massive search ensues. But when Carter’s sailb...

Quick Hits for Creativity in the Classroom introduces faculty, administrators, and staff to creative techniques that can be incorporated into the classroom at undergraduate and graduate levels. These techniques from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences can enhance learning and support professional development experiences for students and faculty alike.While faculty are experts in their disciplines, many are not formally trained in effective or evidence-based...

The evocative and riveting stories of four brothers—Gershom the Zionist, Werner the Communist, Reinhold the nationalist, and Erich the liberal—weave together in The Scholems**, a biography of an eminent middle-class Jewish Berlin family and a social history of the Jews in Germany in the decades leading up to World War II.**Across four generations, Jay Howard Geller illuminates the transformation of traditional Jews into modern German citiz...

Seventy-five years after the Holocaust, 100,000 Jews live in Germany. Their community is diverse and vibrant, and their mere presence in Germany is symbolically important. In Rebuilding Jewish Life in Germany, scholars of German-Jewish history, literature, film, television, and sociology illuminate important aspects of Jewish life in Germany from 1949 to the present day. In West Germany, the development of representative bodies and research institutions reflected a desire to set d...

Apostles of Rock is the first objective, comprehensive examination of the contemporary Christian music phenomenon. Some see CCM performers as ministers or musical missionaries, while others define them as entertainers or artists. This popular musical movement clearly evokes a variety of responses concerning the relationship between Christ and culture. The resulting tensions have splintered the genre and given rise to misunderstanding, conflict, and an obsessive focus on self-exami...

Jester Prince is the story of The Flying Karamazov Brothers comedy/theatre/musical/juggling troupe and their rise from San Francisco street corners and Renaissance Fairs to Broadway, television, film, and Carnegie Hall. It traces how the author's Ashkenazi and Scots-Irish ancestry launched him into a childhood in suburban Los Angeles just as the Hippie Revolution exploded, inspiring a biology prodigy to take up the juggling balls that would change the course of his life and open unexpected...

A Love Affair Inspiring the World's Most Unforgettable OperasExperience the intense, lifelong love affair between Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi, the brilliant and seductive soprano who shaped his legacy. As his muse, lover, and wife, Strepponi was the inspiration behind Verdi's most iconic works, including La Traviata and Aida. Her influence was pivotal, as she became the architect of his creative triumphs and the heart of his operatic genius.Set ...

A new collection of short stories, poems and non-fiction from the talented members of Words and Water Group. This international group was formed in 2013 to encourage donations to WaterAid. In 2014 there are contributions from many of the original members, and new members have joined. In this very high quality work you will find early morning sunlight glistening in a drop of water, pivotal moments in the lives of ordinary people, through to human annexation of another planet.This wo...

In 1938, Howard Jay Graham, a deaf law librarian, successfully argued that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment--ratified after the American Civil War to establish equal protection under the law for all American citizens regardless of race--were motivated by abolitionist fervor, debunking the notion of a corporate conspiracy at the heart of the amendment's wording. For over half a century, the amendment had been used to endow corporations with rights as individuals and thus protect them...