My Nine Lives (Minus) One: A Memoir

Joe Izzillo is the author of "My Nine Lives (minus) One," an extraordinary memoir of a Renaissance man now in his 88th year.

The author grew up in an Italian ghetto in The Bronx in New York City with Italian as his principal language.

He spent two years in a monastery and three years in the army in World War II in the combat engineers and the topographic engineers.

In England he married the former Noreen Burnham. They have raised six children.

After the war he attended Fordham University an...