The Defendant: Frank Conniff.Comedian, writer, gout sufferer, and prolific tweeter, who understood that his incendiary social media posts might one day lead to calls for his head, but never suspected that the calls would be coming from inside his house. The Plaintiffs:Millie & Barney.Indoor cats. Eaters, sleepers, poppers, bladder emptiers. Frequent subjects of Conniff's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram timelines, until they finally decided that enough was enough and fought back against what they perceived as rank exploitation by the guy they had always assumed was working for them.The result was a bombshell Defamation of Character law suit, the repercussions of which were still being felt minutes after the trial ended.Now every sensational detail of the legal cage match that shocked the world can now be told. This volume contains the whole scandalous story of a precedent-setting judicial conflict that makes the O.J. Simpson trial look like a mere double murder.

Ninety years after W.E.B. Du Bois first articulated the need for "the equivalent of a black Encyclopedia Britannica," Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., realized his vision by publishing Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience in 1999. This new, greatly expanded edition of the original work broadens the foundation provided by Africana. Including more than one million new words, Africana has been completely updated and revised. New entries on African kingdoms have been added, bibliographies now accompany most articles, and the encyclopedia's coverage of the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean has been expanded, transforming the set into the most authoritative research and scholarly reference set on the African experience ever created. More than 4,000 articles cover prominent individuals, events, trends, places, political movements, art forms, business and trade, religion, ethnic groups, organizations and countries on both sides of the Atlantic. African American history and culture in the present-day United States receive a strong emphasis, but African American history and culture throughout the rest of the Americas and their origins in African itself have an equally strong presence. The articles that make up Africana cover subjects ranging from affirmative action to zydeco and span over four million years from the earlies-known hominids, to Sean "Diddy" Combs. With entries ranging from the African ethnic groups to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Africana, Second Edition, conveys the history and scope of cultural expression of people of African descent with unprecedented depth.

Cats are incredible creatures: they can eat practically anything and live almost anywhere. Tracing their rise from prehistory to the modern cat craze, Abigail Tucker presents an adventure through history, natural science, and pop culture. With keen reporting and lively wit, Tucker investigates the way house cats have used their relationship with humans to become one of the most powerful animals on the planet--