Dr. Smith brings us along in "Journey Through the Hoods" to inspire, motivate, and remind us that it's less about where you've been and more about the lessons you learn along the way.

“Rarely do memoirs of grief combine anguish, love, and fury with such elegance.” — Entertainment Weekly In 2002, Ann Hood’s five-year-old daughter Grace died suddenly from a virulent form of strep throat. Stunned and devastated, the family searched for comfort in a time when none seemed possible. Hood—an accomplished novelist—was unable to read or write. She could only reflect on her lost daughter—“the way she looked splashing in the bathtub ... the way we sang ‘Eight Days a Week.’” One day, a friend suggested she learn to knit. Knitting soothed her and gave her something to do. Eventually, she began to read and write again. A semblance of normalcy returned, but grief, in ever new and different forms, still held the family. What they could not know was that comfort would come, and in surprising ways. Hood traces her descent into grief and reveals how she found comfort and hope again—a journey to recovery that culminates with a newly adopted daughter.

Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army--and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever. A Separate Country is the heartrending story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures-and the story of those who taught him to love, and to be loved, and transformed him.

A sophisticated and suspenseful novel about the poignant lives of two women living in different eras. On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an uncompromising young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of Jackie O, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead, Vivien not only helps others cope with their grief but also begins to understand the devastation of her own terrible loss. The surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways. Part literary mystery and part love story, The Obituary Writer examines expectations of marriage and love, the roles of wives and mothers, and the emotions of grief, regret, and hope.

This concise, practical treatise explores the process to community building, written for the culture by a leader in the culture. "Make The Hood Great Again" is Rafa Wright's high level manifesto on how to make America's inner cities better based on his journey to open a grocery store in Detroit. Wright is challenging leaders across the nation to make their hood great."Make The Hood Great Again" states that the pillars to a successful community are strong foundations in politics, economics, and education which will increase the quality of life of its citizens. Wright acknowledges the uphill battle leaders and citizens will have in America's inner cities due to longstanding systematic discrimination. Nonetheless, Rafa is highly optimistic that the time is now for hood babies to make their hoods a better place to live.

Marien and Robin Hood's daughter must join the Merry Men to save her parents.

Hoods are informal groups and formal organizations that can create synergies and help us achieve more than we could on our own. A hood is an apt metaphor as it suggests that organizations arent always simple and nice. Theyre compiled of teams that should be working in synchronicity, with direction, and in harmony for the benefit of stakeholders. Leading these hoods, however, isnt so simple as leaders must do more than obtain consensus; they must get people excited about executing a strategy, innovating with constant improvement, and adding value. Veteran business executive Bob Sutton shares lessons and strategies so you can: make individual team members better at what they do; eliminate dysfunction that can hurt operating results; back up your business vision with strategy; and empower people to operate within clear boundaries. The author also highlights ways to improve systems and processes, brand management techniques, navigating succession, business culture, and how to keep team members engaged. Whether you are just starting out as a leader or have been on your journey for many years, youll find insights you can use in Leadership in the Hood.

The Hoods are missing, and Robyn knows someone is trying to use them to get to her. Can she outsmart the villain before it's too late? Spellbound is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.

Spank is the leader of a major drug operation based out of the Longwood Housing projects in Cleveland, Ohio. He has set up a yearly basketball tournament with the leader of his rival project Garden Valley. The day that the game takes place all hell breaks loose. Spank's quick temper and a set of unexpected events test everything that Spank has built. His loyalty to his team as well as everything that he has built is put to the test. Will Spank be able to pull through or will he crumble from the pressure ... Take a journey with him through the wicked streets of Cleveland.

Kentucky State Representative Charles Booker tells the improbable story of his journey from one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country to a political career forging new alliances among forgotten communities across the New South and beyond. “Charles Booker is a rising leader in our nation, and an inspiration to me and all those who get to know his story and vision.”—Senator Cory Booker Charles Booker grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kentucky, living in the largely segregated West End of Louisville. Faith and love were everything in his family, but material comforts were scarce. The electricity was sometimes shut off. His mother often went hungry so her son could eat. Even after he graduated from law school, Booker rationed the insulin he took for diabetes. Determined to build a world in which poverty and racism would not plague future generations, he charted his own course into Kentucky politics, a world dominated by the myth of an urban-rural divide, and controlled by the formidable Republican establishment. In this stirring account, Booker unfolds his journey from the heart of Louisville to the deepest reaches of Kentucky’s rural landscapes, reflecting the journey America itself must make on the way to a progressive future. Robbed of multiple family members by gun violence, Booker found the roots of a system built to fail him and his neighbors in everything from the hypocrisy of elected officials to the structural racism embedded in the state’s budget. Yet it wasn’t until his unlikely appointment to the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources that he understood the transformative power of the issues that bound his family with those in rural Appalachia. In coal country, he met citizens who, like those in the West End, suffered from extreme isolation, for whom fresh food and economic stability were scarce, who lacked the resources to overcome their cynicism about change. Through his work as the youngest Black state legislator in Kentucky, Booker built an unprecedented alliance between the hood and the holler. This coalition was the basis for a thrilling grassroots Senate campaign that nearly stunned the nation, putting Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul on notice that the days of business as usual were over. From the Hood to the Holler is both a moving coming-of-age story and an urgent political intervention—a much-needed blueprint for how equity and racial justice might transcend partisan divisions in Kentucky, throughout the South, and across America.