We all need inspiration. Other People's Words delivers it. When we are confused or sad, lonely or angry, or simply in need of a boost in a relationship or in our life goals, each of us can be uplifted by the wisdom of others. New York Times bestselling author Seth M. Siegel has spent a lifetime collecting quotations that can guide us through virtually every life challenge and experience. The result is Other People's Words, a must-have collection that belongs in every student’s dorm room, every executive’s office, and on everyone’s night table. With nearly 1,200 quotations from more than 700 sources organized into 200 categories within 11 thematic areas, anyone of any age can be motivated by the insights found in this uplifting book. Other People's Words brings together moving, beautifully worded ideas from the ancients to the moderns and from the famous to the unknown to motivate, to teach, to heal – and to inspire. Other People's Words will be an enduring source of guidance for family, friends, graduates, co-workers, and retirees. Indeed, for all of us.

Literacy researchers have rarely studied families of urban Appalachian background, yet, as Purcell-Gates demonstrates, their often severe literacy problems provide a unique perspective on literacy and the relationship between print and culture. A compelling case study details the author’s work with one such family.

A voyeuristic look at modern romance brings together an assortment of actual love letters, written by a diverse cross section of people, that appear exactly as they were originally written, offering candid insights into how people think about love.

Fascinating, wide-ranging study describes and illustrates signs used for specific words, phrases, sentences, and even dialogues. Scores of diagrams show precise movements of body and hands for signing.

This volume draws together eleven essays by scholars of the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Greco-Roman religion and early Judaism, to address the ways that conceptions of identity and otherness shape the interpretation of biblical and other religiously authoritative texts. The contributions explore how interpreters of scriptural texts regularly assume or assert an identification between their own communities and those described in the text, while ignoring the cultural, social, and religious differences between themselves and the text's earliest audiences. Comparing a range of examples, these essays address varying ways in which social identity has shaped the historical contexts, implied audiences, rhetorical shaping, redactional development, literary appropriation, and reception history of particular texts over time. Together, they open up new avenues for studying the relations between social identity, scriptural interpretation, and religious authority.

Other People's Myths celebrates the universal art of storytelling, and the rich diversity of stories that people live by. Drawing on Biblical parables, Greek myths, Hindu epics, and the modern mythologies of Woody Allen and soap operas, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty encourages us to feel anew the force of myth and tradition in our lives, and in the lives of other cultures. She shows how the stories of mythology—whether of Greek gods, Chinese sages, or Polish rabbis—enable all cultures to define themselves. She raises critical questions about the way we interpret mythical stories, especially the way different cultures make use of central texts and traditions. And she offers a sophisticated way of looking at the roles myths play in all cultures.

The finance sector of Western economies is too large and attracts too many of the smartest college graduates. Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance sector devotes too little attention to the search for new investment opportunities and the stewardship of existing ones, and far too much to secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Regulation has contributed more to the problems than the solutions. Why? What is finance for? John Kay, with wide practical and academic experience in the world of finance, understands the operation of the financial sector better than most. He believes in good banks and effective asset managers, but good banks and effective asset managers are not what he sees. In a dazzling and revelatory tour of the financial world as it has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 crisis, Kay does not flinch in his criticism: we do need some of the things that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs do, but we do not need Citigroup and Goldman to do them. And many of the things done by Citigroup and Goldman do not need to be done at all. The finance sector needs to be reminded of its primary purpose: to manage other people's money for the benefit of businesses and households. It is an aberration when the some of the finest mathematical and scientific minds are tasked with devising algorithms for the sole purpose of exploiting the weakness of other algorithms for computerized trading in securities. To travel further down that road leads to ruin. A Financial Times Book of the Year, 2015 An Economist Best Book of the Year, 2015 A Bloomberg Best Book of the Year, 2015