My Life In Dog Years is the autobiography of comedian, bestselling author, screenwriter, playwright and actress Rita Rudner. From a difficult childhood to dancing in New York at fifteen to becoming a Johnny Carson favorite to headlining in Las Vegas to motherhood, Rita wittily explains her eventful life journey. The one constant in her life has been her dogs –Tiny, Agatha, Bonkers, Twinkle and Betsy. She explains, “Across the decades, I have depended on the steady, non-judgmental, immensely-satisfying love that only dogs can bring.”

The End of Her is a story of a Jewish family’s immigration to the New World: rising from poverty to wealth as cattle dealers and (possibly) bootleggers, then shattering apart after a murder. It’s also the story of a present-day Jewish family, struggling with memory loss and mortality, trying to understand what earlier generations endured. A heavily researched true-crime family memoir, it alternates between past and present, relying on interviews, official documents, long-lost photos, and dozens of newspaper stories. It’s a story that spans Jewish time and geography, from the Catskills to Winnipeg’s North End, from a Ukrainian shtetl to Jersey City, from Greenwich Village to rural Saskatchewan, from suburban D.C. to the top of Masada.

What could pos­si­bly bring togeth­er Israeli politi­cians, devout young Chris­tians, ardent Zion­ists, and Islam­ic ter­ror­ists? Vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing — except this com­pelling mys­tery nov­el, set in con­tem­po­rary Jerusalem, which depicts their clash as they crash and thrash through the sands of the Qum­ran desert in their fear-fueled pur­suit of an ancient trea­sure scroll.

Madam is the biog­ra­phy of Pol­ly Adler (1900−1962), the most infa­mous and influ­en­tial madam in Jazz Age New York. Her 1953 mem­oir, A House is Not A Home, sold 2 mil­lion books and became a 1963 movie star­ring Shel­ley Win­ters. More than a biog­ra­phy, this is a col­or­ful and unusu­al his­to­ry of Jew­ish life told through the per­spec­tive of a ​“good Jew­ish girl” from a Russ­ian shtetl who immi­grat­ed to Brook­lyn and rose to become ​“the female Al Capone” and one of the most renowned Jew­ish-Amer­i­can women in the 20th cen­tu­ry. Her broth­els were under­world salons that catered to every­one from the Van­der­bilts and the Rockefellers to Wal­ter Winchell, Frank Sina­tra, Desi Arnaz, the Algo­nquin Round­table, Dutch Schultz and Mey­er Lan­sky, and, it was rumored, Franklin D. Roo­sevelt.

Bagel lovers rejoice! This thor­ough yet acces­si­ble cook­book demys­ti­fies bagel mak­ing with just five base ingre­di­ents and straight­for­ward tech­niques for mak­ing the dough, shap­ing the bagels, proof­ing, boil­ing, bak­ing, stor­ing, and more. Recipes include two dozen vari­a­tions on the New York bagel, with clas­sic and inno­v­a­tive fla­vors rang­ing from sesame to blue­ber­ry and hatch chile jack, as well as homemade spreads, schmears, pick­les, and oth­er delicious favorites, like home-smoked Nova and smoked white­fish Sal­ad, for max­i­mum graz­ing. Home bak­ers of all lev­els will delight in these reli­able recipes and share them as a host­ess, house warm­ing, or Yom Kip­pur gift. With sug­gest­ed menus for fun brunch­es and gath­er­ings, pho­tos of fin­ished food and step-by-step tech­niques, and a charm­ing nosh aes­thet­ic, this is both a com­pre­hen­sive bak­ing resource and a play­ful guide to mak­ing one of America’s best-loved foods.

Based on her two-decade career as a local TV news reporter in New York City, Jen Max­field takes read­ers on a dra­mat­ic ride-along with her in the live truck, from the moment she gets the call to head to break­ing news, to arriv­ing at chaot­ic scenes, to knock­ing on doors of fam­i­lies who are griev­ing the loss of a loved one. Max­field revis­its ten mem­o­rable sto­ries, describ­ing in heart pounding detail how the events unfold­ed, through the eye­wit­ness per­spec­tives and her own. From a young man who lost both legs in a fer­ry crash, to an endurance ath­lete with stage-four lung can­cer; from a fifth grad­er on a doomed field trip, to an Ivy League under­grad sen­tenced to decades in prison, Max­field intro­duces read­ers to unfor­get­table peo­ple who will inspire you with their hope­ful­ness, even when con­fronting life’s great­est heart­breaks. Return­ing to the fam­i­lies years – even decades– after their sto­ries were fea­tured on the news gives Max­field an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask the burn­ing ques­tion she had always pon­dered: what hap­pened after the live truck pulled away?

Simon Wiesen­thal was a Holo­caust sur­vivor who became inter­na­tion­al­ly famous for relent­less­ly pur­su­ing and bring­ing near­ly 1,100 Nazi war crim­i­nals to jus­tice. He is best known for his role in cap­tur­ing Adolf Eich­mann, the archi­tect of the Final Solution.

This award-win­ning one-man play, now avail­able in book form, begins on the day of his retire­ment when Simon Wiesen­thal invites one last group of stu­dents into his office. With warmth, wit, and sur­pris­ing humor, the famed ​“Nazi Hunter” recounts how he tracked down history’s most noto­ri­ous killers, warn­ing his young friends that although progress has been made since WWII, the human sav­age still lurks just below this wafer-thin veil of civ­i­liza­tion. Author Tom Dugan cap­tures the essence of this extra­or­di­nary man in the con­text of Holo­caust his­to­ry as well as the lega­cy he left behind.

When Lily and Alex entered a packed gym­na­si­um in Queens, New York in 1972, they bare­ly rec­og­nized their son. The boy who escaped to Amer­i­ca with them, who was bul­lied as he strug­gled to learn Eng­lish and cope with fam­i­ly tragedy, was now a young man who had dis­cov­ered and secret­ly honed his bas­ket­ball tal­ent on the out­door courts of New York City. That young man was Ernie Grun­feld, who would go on to win an Olympic gold medal and reach pre­vi­ous­ly unimag­in­able heights as an NBA play­er and exec­u­tive. In By the Grace of the Game, Dan Grun­feld, once a bas­ket­ball stand­out him­self at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, shares the remark­able sto­ry of his fam­i­ly, a del­i­cate­ly inter­wo­ven nar­ra­tive that doesn’t lack in heart­break yet remains as deeply nour­ish­ing as his grandmother’s Hun­gar­i­an cook­ing, so lov­ing­ly described. The true improb­a­bil­i­ty of the saga lies in the dis­cov­ery of a game that unknow­ing­ly held the pow­er to heal wounds, build bridges, and tie togeth­er a frac­tured Jew­ish family.

Today’s top stand-up comedians sell out arenas, generate millions of dollars, tour the world, and help shape our social discourse. So, how did this all happen? The History of Stand-Up chronicles the evolution of this American art form – from its
earliest pre-vaudeville practitioners like Artemus Ward and Mark Twain to present-day comedians of HBO and Netflix. Drawing on his acclaimed History of Stand-up podcast and popular university lectures, veteran comedian and adjunct USC professor Wayne Federman guides us on this fascinating journey.

Food Americana is the inside story of how Americans have formed a national cuisine from a world of flavors—from lox and bagels to sushi, tacos to pizza, and on and on—and how that process continues today. Each chapter concludes with a classic recipe. It’s a riveting ride into every aspect of what we eat and why, filled with eye-opening information, revealing anecdotes, and a healthy serving of humor. It includes conversations with some of the most significant people in food.

Daniel Levin was in his New York office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over twenty tense days. Levin, a lawyer turned armed-conflict negotiator, chases leads throughout the Middle East, meeting with powerful sheikhs, drug lords, and sex traffickers in his pursuit of the truth.

In Proof of Life, Levin dives deep into the shadows—an underground industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and even people. He offers a fascinating study of how people use leverage to get what they want from one another and of a place where no one does a favor without wanting something in return, whether it’s immediately or years down the road.

Written as a report to the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, our unnamed narrator recounts his own undoing. Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II and guides tours through the sites for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims’ lives.

The job becomes a mission, and then an obsession. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the genocide committed by the Nazis. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers—their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill. The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honor the memory of horror without becoming consumed by it?

Daniel Levin was in his New York office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over twenty tense days. Levin, a lawyer turned armed-conflict negotiator, chases leads throughout the Middle East, meeting with powerful sheikhs, drug lords, and sex traffickers in his pursuit of the truth.

In Proof of Life, Levin dives deep into the shadows—an underground industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and even people. He offers a fascinating study of how people use leverage to get what they want from one another and of a place where no one does a favor without wanting something in return, whether it’s immediately or years down the road.

traditional Jewish dishes are soups and stews—prepared before Friday night and kept warm throughout Shabbat, when observant Jews aren’t allowed to cook—and that’s the sweet spot of the Instant Pot® as it allows for vastly shorter cooking times without compromising flavor or texture. The Instant Pot® Kosher Cookbook includes timeless Jewish favorites tailored to this modern appliance along with kosher versions of international classics—all expertly and deliciously adapted to the Instant Pot®.