Former Shaker Heights resident Deborah J. Cohan will have a book signing for her new book, “Welcome to Wherever We Are: A Memoir of Family, Caregiving, and Redemption” at 1 p.m. Feb. 16 at Barnes & Noble at Eton Chagrin Boulevard, 28801 Chagrin Blvd. in Woodmere.
“Echoes of Jerry”
By Judah Leblang
162 pages; $14.18
Red Giant Books
Judah Leblang is a Boston-based writer, teacher and storyteller who grew up in Beachwood. The lifelong Cleveland Browns and Indians fan graduated from Beachwood High and attended Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple. He also briefly taught at the Alexander Graham Bell School for the Deaf in the Cleveland Municipal School District before moving to Columbus to teach at the Ohio School for the Deaf.
His essays and commentaries have been broadcast on 200 ABC radio network and NPR stations around the United States, and he is the author of two memoirs, “Finding My Place: One Man’s Journey from Cleveland to Boston and Beyond” and his new book, “Echoes of Jerry: One Man’s Search for His Deaf Uncle and His Own Voice.”
His most recent book explores Leblang’s childhood in suburban Cleveland. He felt a deep connection with his Uncle Jerry, an orally-educated deaf man who lived an isolated life between the deaf and hearing worlds.
Like his uncle, Leblang felt different too. He struggled with his sexuality while trying to find his place in society. He ultimately came out in the mid-1980s.
After working in the Deaf community for many years, Leblang lost much of his own hearing. The book represents Leblang’s journey to understand his late uncle and to give him a voice.
“Searching for Heather Dean: My Extraordinary Career as a Celebrity Interviewer and Why I Left It”
By Heather Dean
241 pages; $17.99
Heather Dean Productions
Heather Dean was born in Cleveland and raised in Shaker Heights and now lives in Jerusalem with her family.
Her book, “Searching for Heather Dean,” brings readers on Dean’s personal journey as a single career woman who worked as an entertainment journalist in New York City, interviewing celebrities for outlets such as MTV, E! Entertainment Television and AP Radio. She also details her current life as a Torah-observant wife and mother, using her professional skills and expertise in a new way, interviewing rabbis, rebbetzins and scholars for aish.com’s weekly podcast, “At Home in Jerusalem.”
"Bombs, Bullets, and Bribes: the true story of notorious Jewish mobster Alex Shondor Birns"
By Rick Porrello
344 pages; $18.95
Next Hat Press
Cleveland Heights High School graduate Rick Porrello’s first career was as a jazz drummer. He later spent 33-years as a police officer in Greater Cleveland, with the last 10 years as chief of police in Lyndhurst.
Porrello has a knack for writing books that attract interest from filmmakers. His first book, “To Kill the Irishman – the War that Crippled the Mafia,” was turned into the movie “Kill the Irishman,” starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Christopher Walken, and Val Kilmer.
A motion picture based on his third book, “Superthief – A Master Burglar, the Mafia, and the Biggest Bank Burglary in U.S. History,” is in development.
He also wrote “The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia: Corn Sugar and Blood,” which was published in 2004.
His most recent book, “Bombs, Bullets, and Bribes: The True Story of Notorious Jewish Mobster Alex Shondor Birns,” is the true story of Shondor Birns, an aging Jewish mobster struggling to maintain control and his reputation in a black-dominated gambling empire. His relentless challenges include a rogue protege and a high-stakes, high-finance mystery stretching from the United States to Israel, and Canada to Cuba.
"The Fourth Quarter: The Shaker Heights High School Class of 1969"
194 pages; $7.95
Shaker69
“The Fourth Quarter: The Shaker Heights High School Class of 1969” contains memories, reflections, hopes and dreams of the Shaker Heights High School class of 1969.
They were all about 18 years old when they graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1969; they will all turn 68 in 2019. Most of them are probably in the fourth quarter of their lives. But in a close game, a game that truly matters, the fourth quarter is the most important part. Good plays and bad plays are remembered for a long time.
That is what the class kept in mind while looking backward and forward in this book.
Noting they experienced integration in Shaker during their school days, the authors said they each experienced it differently depending upon where in Shaker their families lived.
Many of them are grandparents. Many of them are retired. Although they may be slowing down, others have found opportunities to engage.
In this book, they look back to their time at Shaker and reflect on how that time made them who they are today.
“A Prince in the Queen City: The Life of Henry Mack”
By Michael W. Rich
130 pages; $14.99
Apprentice House
Michael W. Rich grew up on Cleveland’s east side where he attended The Temple-Tifereth Israel before receiving his undergraduate degree from Brown University in Providence, R.I. He earned his medical degree at the University of Toledo College of Medicine in Toledo. Now, Rich serves as an associate professor of medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University and is the interim chair of Summa Health System’s department of medicine.
An avid genealogist, Rich details the life story of his great-great-great-grandfather in his biographical sketch, “A Prince in the Queen City: The Life of Henry Mack.”
Rich’s ancestor was an immigrant who arrived with little financial means or formal education. He would ultimately become a wealthy merchant, a champion of education, a force in Cincinnati and Ohio politics, and a founder of the American Jewish Reform movement.
According to Rich’s book, Mack influenced more than one presidential election and almost became the first Jew to serve in a presidential cabinet. He was at the center of the landmark case that prohibited the reading of the Bible in public schools and landed in the midst of a congressional investigation that would lead to creation of the False Claims Act.
“Kovels’ Antiques and Collectibles Price Guide 2020"
By Kim Kovel and Terry Kovel
568 pages; $29.99
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Terry Kovel has been a lifelong collector and expert. She is based in Cleveland and has written more than 100 books on antiques and collectibles and writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column, a subscriber newsletter and an e-newsletter. Terry Kovel’s daughter, Kim Kovel, caught the collecting bug as a child, growing up in a house filled with antiques and traveling regularly to antique shows and flea markets all over the country. She runs and contributes to the Kovels’ website and has spent the last 10 years working on the Kovels’ price guides and other Kovel projects.
The Kovels are a well-known source for both the casual and the expert collector. With 16,000 actual prices and 2,500 full-color photographs, “Kovels’ Antiques and Collectibles Price Guide 2020,” also features organized, wide-ranging, up-to-the-minute information, and includes tips, marks, logos and photographs.
Kovels’ is the only guide with prices based on actual sales from the previous calendar year, never estimates. Unlike other guides, which focus almost exclusively on English or high-priced items, Kovels’ covers all American and international items and includes reasonably-priced items.
The book is organized by categories most sought-after by collectors, including depression glass, dolls, jewelry, furniture, porcelain, and sports memorabilia. Indexes, cross-references, and expert commentary throughout empower readers to collect with confidence and price their own antiques.
The 2020 edition includes a special section, “Collecting Trends: Iconic Designers of Twentieth-Century Furniture.”
“The Old Stories”
By David Selcer
234 pages; $12.95
Biblio Publishing
Columbus resident David Selcer’s sixth book, “The Old Stories,” is a fictional account loosely based on his grandfather, Hyman Zeltzer, who immigrated to Cleveland at the turn of the 20th century.
He didn’t go through Ellis Island in New York, the way most immigrants who came to the United Statesa did. Instead, he entered the U.S. through Vancouver, Canada. The 17-year-old’s trek started on a Russian battleship in the Pacific Ocean. His first job was on the Canadian Northern Railway from Edmonton to Quebec and not in a New York sweatshop. Assimilation was a problem for him, but the values he learned early in life led him to amazing consequences.
When the family moved to Cleveland, his wife took the lead in running the family’s grocery store. He overcame his relegation to the sideline with personal courage through the simple lessons he learned in his Ukrainian Hebrew school and by his empathy for others when he temporarily left his home after World War II.
Selcer, who was born in Cleveland, is a member of Temple Israel in Columbus. In 2004, he retired from his partnership in the law firm of BakerHostetler to write novels. He is author of the Buckeye Barrister Mystery series and wrote the “Lincoln’s Hat and the TEA Movement’s Anger,” which was awarded first place in category for historical fiction in the Chanticleer Reviews writing competition.
“Welcome to Wherever We Are: A Memoir of Family, Caregiving, and Redemption”
By Deborah J. Cohan
184 pages; $26.95
Rutgers University Press
Cohan, who grew up in Shaker Heights as an only child, shares her story about caring for her father, a man who was loud, gentle, loving, cruel and whose career as an advertising executive
included creating slogans like “How about a nice Hawaiian punch?”
Cohan wrestled with emotional extremes that characterize abusive relationships. She showed how she navigated life with a man who was generous and affectionate, but at the same time, remarked, “You’d make my life easier if you’d commit suicide.”
In her memoir, Cohan tells her personal journey while weaving in her expertise as a sociologist and domestic abuse counselor to address broader questions related to marriage, violence, divorce, only children, intimacy and loss. Most people deal with at least one of these issues. The book explores how people could live better amidst unpredictable changes through grief and healing.
She describes herself as an interdisciplinary sociologist, a feminist sociologist and a public sociologist.
Cohan, who identified as Jewish but not affiliated nor practicing while growing up, is an associate professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort.
She will have a book signing at 1 p.m. Feb. 16 at Barnes & Noble at Eton Chagrin Boulevard.
“Ultimate Vacation: The Definitive Guide to Living Well Today and Retiring Well Tomorrow”
By Randy Carver
235 pages; $12.95
Lioncrest Publishing
Randy Carver of Carver Financial Services Inc. in Mentor has authored “Ultimate Vacation: The Definitive Guide to Living Well Today and Retiring Well Tomorrow.
“Many people spend more time planning their next vacation while ignoring retirement – the ultimate vacation,” said Carver, a member of Temple Am Shalom in Mentor, in a news release. “This book is meant to help people learn how they can live well today while retiring well in the future.”
The book reached No. 1 in Amazon’s retirement planning and budgeting categories.
Carver, who lives in Kirtland Hills, has worked in the financial industry since 1986 and founded his company in 1990.
An entrepreneur since age 6 when he sold bouquets door-to-door, he overcame challenging odds as a child. At age 12, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which years later he learned was malignant thymoma. He also lived through a single-engine plane crash in 1989.
Along the way, Carver never failed to let adversity get the best of him. He rose above each time seemingly insurmountable challenges.
