Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she travels from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust. Deeply ambitious in its narrative sweep, Jacob's Cane captures the rich texture of life on several continents as New's family searches to establish itself in the tobacco trade. A fascinating history of one family's story of progress, innovation, and struggle, Jacob's Cane will change the way we think about the Jewish American experience.

The surprising story of how wrestling superstar Glenn "Kane" Jacobs beat all the odds to become the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. Even in his heyday in wrestling, Jacobs was inspired to pursue politics by popular libertarian figures such as former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, Republican Senator Rand Paul, Fox News' Judge Andrew Napolitano and others, and that led him to fulfill his own political ambitions. Before becoming Mayor Kane, Glenn "Kane" Jacobs was one of WWE's top Superstars for over two decades and traveled the globe with the likes of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, John Cena, Ric Flair, and many others. He dominated the WWE with The Undertaker as the "Brothers of Destruction." Kane reinvented himself with the help of Daniel Bryan forming "Team Hell No." He set "Good ol' JR," Jim Ross on fire. The wrestler-turned-politician hasn't hung up his wrestling boots yet. Politics is a contact sport and Jacobs is using his wrestling skills in that arena. Jacobs supports President Trump and his agenda, and is implementing conservative policies in Tennessee.

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. In Jacob's Cane, New follows her lineage through Baltimore and back to the Baltic, encountering five generations of relatives shaped by the mass murders of the Second World War and the opportunities they found in America. A fascinating and beautifully told family saga, Jacob's Cane transforms the way we think about the immigrant experience of countless Americans.

A powerful tragedy distilled into a small masterpiece by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader in 1680s United States, when the slave trade is still in its infancy. Reluctantly he takes a small slave girl in part payment from a plantation owner for a bad debt. Feeling rejected by her slave mother, 14-year-old Florens can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives . . . At the novel's heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter – a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

Jack In my perfect world it would always be winter and never Christmas. I despise the holiday. I hate carols, shopping, and pretending to be a perfect family. I walked away from my family, or rather they walked away from me. My heart is like ice-- See it creeping up the walls. Oh, wait, no, that's royal icing. I never should have allowed The Great Christmas Bake-Off to film in my tower. And I never, ever, should have agreed to be a judge. Chloe I love Christmas! I love sparkly window decorations, heartwarming holiday movies, and themed coffee. Most of all I love Christmas baking. Even though his company is sponsoring the bake-off show, billionaire Jack Frost claims he hates sweets. But after he tastes my goods I know he'll come begging for more. And wouldn't you know it, that night Jack Frost asked me to come up to his penthouse and give him a special taste of my Christmas cookies. Against my better judgement I went... I baked him my signature gingerbread cookies and of course he ate them up! It should have been a Christmas miracle, but Jack Frost couldn't have come into my life at a worse time. Not only am I broke, but this was my first Christmas after my oma died. Someone is trying to sabotage me in The Great Christmas Bake-Off. I'm being stalked by a mall Santa. Sleeping with one of the judges is a disaster waiting to happen. I needed Jack and his washboard abs about as much as I needed that third sticky bun. But when he says in his deep, sexy voice, "Can you make me some more cookies?" well stick a candy cane in me I'm done. Eating Her Christmas Cookies is a standalone holiday novel. This full length steamy romance novel has no cliffhangers but does have a very happily ever after. The paperback version includes the full short story, Eating Her Baked Goods, which is available for free for newsletter subscribers.

A New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick-the unique and deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana. Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family. There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.

How is a sense of place created, imagined, and reinterpreted over time? That is the intriguing question addressed in this comprehensive look at the 400-year history of Salem, Massachusetts, and the experiences of fourteen generations of people who lived in a place mythologized in the public imagination by the horrific witch trials and executions of 1692 and 1693. But from its settlement in 1626 to the present, Salem was, and is, much more than this. In this volume, contributors from a variety of fields examine Salem's multiple urban identities: frontier outpost of European civilization, cosmopolitan seaport, gateway to the Far East, refuge for religious diversity, center for education, and of course, "Witch City" tourist attraction.