The Nine Lives of Julius is the untold true story of a young man whose life was forever changed by World War II and its aftermath. This is a tale of survival, friendship, and love. As a teenager, Julius was taken by the Nazis to work in a labor camp outside of Auschwitz. After escaping the labor camp, he joined the Czech underground where he fought against the Nazis during the Czech uprising. After the war, the communists attempted to arrest him for helping his twin brother escape Czechoslovakia. He had to immediately flee without a farewell to his family or his first true love. As a young man, he performed espionage missions against the communists. On one of these missions, he was shot and captured by the Czech border police. He spent the next several years in communist prison and labor camps. Eventually, Julius escapes the labor camps and flees into Germany where he joins with a new unit of the US Army called the Green Berets. Julius' compelling story tells about wartime hardships and how he somehow managed to cheat death so many times. His story reveals the good in people and of the wonderful friendships that helped him to survive.

The Nine Lives of Julius is the untold true story of a young man whose life was forever changed by World War II and its aftermath. This is a tale of survival, friendship, and love. As a teenager, Julius was taken by the Nazis to work in a labor camp outside of Auschwitz. After escaping the labor camp, he joined the Czech underground where he fought against the Nazis during the Czech uprising. After the war, the communists attempted to arrest him for helping his twin brother escape Czechoslovakia. He had to immediately flee without a farewell to his family or his first true love. As a young man, he performed espionage missions against the communists. On one of these missions, he was shot and captured by the Czech border police. He spent the next several years in communist prison and labor camps. Eventually, Julius escapes the labor camps and flees into Germany where he joins with a new unit of the US Army called the Green Berets. Julius' compelling story tells about wartime hardships and how he somehow managed to cheat death so many times. His story reveals the good in people and of the wonderful friendships that helped him to survive.

These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire. Selected from Plutarch's Roman Lives, they include prominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles in Roman history, such as soldierly Marcellus, eloquent Cato and cautious Fabius. Here too are vivid portraits of ambitious, hot-tempered Coriolanus; objective, principled Brutus and open-hearted Mark Anthony, who would later be brought to life by Shakespeare. In recounting the lives of these great leaders, Plutarch also explores the problems of statecraft and power and illustrates the Roman people's genius for political compromise, which led to their mastery of the ancient world.

In the early morning hours of December 8, 1969, three hundred officers of the newly created elite paramilitary tactical unit known as SWAT initiated a violent battle with a handful of Los Angeles&–based members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). Five hours and five thousand rounds of ammunition later, three SWAT team members and three Black Panthers lay wounded. From a tactical standpoint, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) considered the encounter a disaster. For the Panthers and the community that supported them, the shootout symbolized a victory. A key contributor to that victory was the nineteen-year-old rank-and-file member of the BPP Wayne Pharr. Nine Lives of a Black Panther tells Wayne's riveting story of the Los Angeles branch of the BPP and gives a blow-by-blow account of how it prepared for and survived the massive military-style attack. Because of his dedication to the black liberation struggle, Wayne was hunted, beaten, and almost killed by the LAPD in four separate events. Here he reveals how the branch survived attacks such as these, and also why BPP cofounder Huey P. Newton expelled the entire Southern California chapter and deemed it &“too dangerous to remain a part of the national organization.&” The Los Angeles branch was the proving ground for some of the most beloved and colorful characters in Panther lore, including Bunchy Carter, Masai Hewitt, Geronimo &“ji-Jaga&” Pratt, and Elaine Brown. Nine Lives fills in a missing piece of Black Panther history, while making clear why black Los Angeles was home to two of the most devastating riots in the history of urban America. But it also eloquently relates one man's triumph over police terror, internal warfare, and personal demons. It will doubtless soon take its place among the classics of black militant literature.

If you wanted to buy a top-quality condom in prewar Germany, you bought Fromms Act, the first brand name condom and still a leading brand in the German market. The man behind this "pure German quality product" was Julius Fromm, a Jewish entrepreneur who had immigrated from Russia as a child. Fromm was in the right place at the right time: he patented Fromms Act in 1916, when the combination of changing sexual mores, awareness of sexual health, and the lack of reliable prophylactics meant a market primed for his product. In 1922 he began mass production and opened international branches. Sixteen years later, after building the brand into a best seller and the company into a model business, he was forced to sell Fromms Act for a fraction of its worth to a German baroness. In 1939 he emigrated to London. Aly and Sontheimer trace Fromm's rise and fall, illuminating the ways Jewish businesses like his were Aryanized under the Nazis. Through the biography of this businessman and the story of his unusual and fabulously successful company, we learn the fascinating history of the first branded condoms in Germany and the sexual culture that allowed them to thrive, the heretofore undocumented machinations by which the Nazis robbed German-Jewish families of their businesses, and the tragedy of a man whose great love for the adopted country that first allowed him to succeed was betrayed by its government and his fellow citizens. This captivating account offers a wealth of detail and a fresh array of photographic documentation, and adds a striking new dimension to our understanding of this dark period in German history.

“Alternately joyous and heartbreaking...” —Jane Goodall A moving and revealing biography of Norway’s most famous chimpanzee. Julius is a national celebrity, the inspiration behind pop hits and bestselling books. He’s also a chimpanzee, born in captivity, but raised in a zookeeper’s home after his own mother rejects him. Julius’s new parents change his diapers and comfort him when he has nightmares, and their daughters play with him. But soon they must reintroduce Julius to the zoo, a challenging task that brings new learnings on primate behavior and the dangers of animal celebrity. Alternately humorous and heartbreaking, Almost Human shows that primates are more like us than we once thought possible. It also charts the transformation of one zoo over time: from a small operation of animals behind bars to a fast-growing attraction coming to terms with twenty-first-century views on animal rights and welfare.

A compelling portrait of composer-performer Julius Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music.

Reinterprets Julius Caesar not as an autocrat seeking to overthrow the Roman Republic, but as an unusually successful political leader.

My Nine Lives is a powerful and stirring memoir of one of the greatest pianists of the postwar era—an inspiring tale of courage, compassion, and triumph over outstanding odds. At the peak of his career, celebrated pianist Leon Fleisher suddenly lost the use of two fingers on his right hand. Miraculously, at the age of sixty-six, he was diagnosed with focal dystonia, and learned to manage it through a combination of physical therapy and experimental Botox injections. In 2003 Fleisher returned to Carnegie Hall to give his first two-handed performance in over three decades and brought down the house. With his coauthor, celebrated music critic Anne Midgette, Fleisher reveals here for the first time the depression that threatened to engulf him as his condition worsened, and the sheer love of music that rescued him from complete self-destruction.

In the early morning hours of December 8, 1969, 300 SWAT team officers initiated a violent battle with a handful of Los Angeles-based members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) that lasted for five hours and went through 5,000 rounds of ammunition. From a tactical standpoint, the Los Angeles Police Department considered the encounter a disaster, but it was a victory for the Panthers and the community that supported them. A key reason for that victory was the actions of a 19-year-old “captain” in the Party: Wayne Pharr. Nine Lives of a Black Panther gives a blow-by-blow account of how the BPP prepared for and survived the massive military-style attack. But it also tells Wayne’s riveting life story. Because of his dedication to the black liberation struggle, Wayne was hunted, beaten, and almost killed by the police in four separate events. The Los Angeles branch was the proving ground for some of the most beloved and colorful characters in Panther lore, including Bunchy Carter, Masai Hewitt, Geronimo “Ji-Jaga” Pratt, and Elaine Brown. Nine Lives of a Black Panther relates Wayne’s triumph over police terror, internal warfare, and personal demons, and illuminates the entire history of one of the most dedicated, dynamic, vilified, and targeted chapters of the BPP. Wayne Pharr was a captain of the Los Angeles branch of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and has traveled throughout the country as a BPP spokesman. He now works as a realtor in Los Angeles.