Biographical

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by Moira Dolan, MD

Click here to preview the book.

New medical history Heroes and Scoundrels
presents an entertaining look at medicine’s
greatest (and not-so-greatest) minds

“I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Every chapter was enlightening, absorbing, and indeed thrilling.”—Harvey J. Alter, MD, winner 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine

“This wide-ranging look at the lives behind the discoveries is just right for pop-science fans.”—Publisher’s Weekly

In Heroes and Scoundrels: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Nobel Prize in Medicine (Volume 2 in the Boneheads and Brainiacs series), author and medical historian Moira Dolan, MD, continues her fascinating exploration of Nobel Prize in Medicine winners, focusing on the years 1951–1975.

The good, the bad, and the ugly of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine are explored in these entertaining biographies of the world’s most highly recognized scientists. From unapologetic Nazis to dedicated humanitarians who carried out prize-winning research while being resistance fighters or peace activists, these engaging true stories reveal the depths of both the human strength and depravity of the people who forged medical progress in the post-WWII era.

The book’s many biographies include the delightful discoveries of a honeybee researcher who persisted through the carpet-bombing of Munich, in-depth reflections on the nature of consciousness from Nobel neuroscientists, and even wild, hard-to-believe self-experimentation in the name of medical progress.

• The 1973 Nobel winner was an animal behaviorist whose wartime activities including “medically assessing” Polish immigrants for concentration camp selection and certain death.
• Total credit for various discoveries was taken by multiple laureates even though the prize-winning work was done entirely by others.
• Nobel prestige was used by a one winner to assert that African Americans were inherently genetically stupid and lazy, but his own genetic analysis revealed significant African heritage.
• While being operatives in the French Resistance, two virus researchers continued their lab experiments during the war. In neighboring Germany, another virus researcher was denied an academic post due to repeatedly failing the vetting process held at Nazi indoctrination camps for university professors.
• The 1956 winner defied sacred taboos of the prevailing educational tradition by doing the world’s first ever human heart catheterization on himself.

Heroes and Scoundrels also provides readers with an eye-opening “behind the scenes” look at what one Nobel winner described as “a few odd crooks” in the Nobel Prize business of the post-War era, including researchers engaged in medical research dishonesty and fraud, and self-important scientists who leveraged their notoriety to influence public health affairs. The role of Nobel Prize winners is revealed in public debates about everything from water fluoridation to “good genes” and “bad genes.” One laureate wondered, “whether mad scientists should really be allowed to police themselves” in light of the lack of informed consent for vaccine research and modified viruses escaping from labs.

As put by one laureate, the medical “priesthood” is due for some critique, and Heroes and Scoundrels will get you thinking.

More about Moira Dolan:

Moira Dolan, MD, is a graduate of the University of Illinois School of Medicine and has been a practicing physician for over 30 years. Dr. Dolan is a patient advocate and public speaker who educates patients on their rights and the need for a healthy skepticism of the medical profession. She is the author of the two-volume Boneheads and Brainiacs series, and is contributor to the blog SmartMEDinfo. She maintains a private medical practice in Austin, Texas.

$18.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 310 pages

ISBN 978-1-610353-93-9

How the Occult Haunted Music, Movies and Pop Culture, 1966–1980
by George Case
Publication Date: March 18, 2016

In 1966, secular rationality seemed so dominant that Time magazine ran a cover story that asked, “Is God dead?” No one could have anticipated that mysticism, the irrational and the Occult would rule American popular culture for the next 15 years.
Here’s to My Sweet Satan is the first book to fully document the Occult craze of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Devil, demonic possession, and magic became the dominant themes of music, books, movies, and even Saturday morning cartoon shows.
A sweeping and masterful cultural history, Here’s to My Sweet Satan tells how the Occult conquered the American imagination, weaving together topics as diverse as the birth of heavy metal, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, New Age cults, Bigfoot, Scooby-Doo, Count Chocula cereal, the serial killer Son of Sam, and more.
Here’s to My Sweet Satan is both a fun, nostalgic look at some of the campier aspects of 60s/70s pop culture  (remember Dark Shadows, pyramid power,  In Search Of … and Chariots of the Gods?) and a serious inquiry into the origins of the dark, disturbing phenomena of the era, from the Manson Family murders to the Jonestown massacre. Cultural critic George Case gives a superb account of the crisscrossing artistic and cultural influences that intersected between the Occult, rock music, paperback fiction and pop culture of the period. (Case’s account of how Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band led to heavy metal is a must-read for all rock fans.)
Here’s to My Sweet Satan ties the many manifestations of the Occult craze into a single cultural movement, a crucial turning point that permanently changed American society, creating the cultural framework for the political power of the religious right, false accusations of Satanic child abuse, and today’s widespread rejection of science and rationality. An insightful blend of pop culture and social history, Here’s to My Sweet Satan lucidly explains how the most technological society on earth became enthralled by the supernatural.

About the Author: George Case is a writer on ideas and popular culture, and an acknowledged authority on the band Led Zeppelin. He is the author of Led Zeppelin FAQ, Calling Dr. Strangelove and several other books.  Case has also contributed several articles to the social science journal Skeptic.

$18.95 ($23.95 Canada) • Hardcover • 6″ x 9″ • 196 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-265-9

Here’s to My Sweet Satan Media Kit

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by Gerry Holzman

Publication Date: August 16, 2022. Click here to preview the book.

Charming, humorous, sometimes tragic, and always fascinating vignettes from a life spent in craftsmanship.

They say life is a merry-go-round—for Gerry Holzman, this has been literally and figuratively true. A master figure carver who has restored over 100 pieces of antique carousel art, created 250 pieces of original carousel carving, and was the head carver and executive director of New York’s landmark Empire State Carousel Project, Holzman has devoted the past 50 years to woodcarving, and his skill has taken him around the world as a student, teacher, craftsman, and artist. Throughout this giddy merry-go-round of a career, he has encountered many intriguing ways to use our brief time on earth and invites us to accompany him as he strives to understand and appreciate them all.

Wanderings of a Wayward Woodcarver is Holzman’s record of a lifetime spent in the craft and the many lessons it has taught him about what it means to be a carver and what it means to be a human being, plus a recounting of the many memorable characters he has met along the way.

From master carver Gino Masero, who taught Holzman much about carving, life, creativity, and decency, to Holzman’s students who touched his life deeply, to a sign carver who could not read, a witch who invited Holzman to visit her coven, and the mafioso who showed Holzman how to prevent his carvings from being stolen, Wanderings of a Wayward Woodcarver shows how a life in craft is the perfect viewpoint to see the whole of the human condition.

More about Gerry Holzman:

Gerry Holzman has been a professional woodcarver since 1971. During his career, Gerry has restored over 100 pieces of antique carousel art and has created approximately 250 pieces of original carousel carving. His commercial clients include Disney World, Cunard Cruise Lines, and the South Street Seaport.

$18.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 250 pages

ISBN 978-1-610353-84-7

A Wounded Police Officer’s Struggle with the Burden All Cops Share

by Brandon S. Hultink

Publication Date: April 7, 2020

A former police officer tells his personal story of the long climb from depression to faith in the intense new personal memoir The Backpack.

An amazing journey from despair to hope, The Backpack tells the truth about the burdens of stress and trauma on police officers and presents an inspirational story of how one cop overcame physical and emotional wounds suffered in the line of duty.

“I can still remember the taste of metal in my mouth from the barrel of the gun . . .” After the shoot-out that put him in a wheelchair, police officer Brandon S. Hultink was ready to put an end to it all.

In his frank and compelling memoir The Backpack, Hultink tells how he came to the worst moment of his life, and how faith in God and the humility to accept help brought him out of depression, addiction and the wheelchair and back into successful life.

But Hultink’s story isn’t his alone — it is also the story of the thousands of police officers who struggle with depression and post-traumatic stress. Cops don’t do touchy-feely stuff; they stuff every trauma into a metaphorical “backpack” until the burden overwhelms them. Hultink writes unflinchingly of the mental health crisis affecting police officers and offers proposals for improving mental health services for police.

An intensely personal story of anguish and survival, The Backpack offers hope to everyone — police and civilian alike — who struggle with depression and pain.

About the Author: A graduate of Western Michigan University and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Brandon S. Hultink served for fifteen years as an officer with the Battle Creek, Michigan, Police Department and for ten years as an assistant prosecutor with the Calhoun Country Prosecutor’s Office. Hultink currently works as a parole agent for the Michigan Department of Corrections. He lives in Battle Creek with his wife and three sons. The Backpack is his first book.

$16.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 140 pages

ISBN 978-1-61035-351-9

The Biggest Lifesavers of the Twentieth Century.

Available Now!

Gayle Taylor Davis had it all —a husband she adored, two successful daughters, and a career she enjoyed. Then one phone call took it all away, when a policeman called to tell her that her husband of 32 years had suddenly died of a heart attack. Plunged into the strange new world of grief, Davis began to write to make sense of her experience.

Grief Sucks … But Love Bears All Things is Davis’s deeply personal account of how she climbed out of grief, step by painful step — a no-holds-barred look at personal pain that is rarely shared or talked about.  Davis reveals the worst moments of what she describes as “gut-wrenching, ass-kicking grief” — days of tears, nights of wailing, and thoughts of suicide — and teaches the reader through her example that one can survive the worst.

Grief Sucks isn’t a self-help book, but an account of suffering that prepares the reader for the worst that life inevitably inflicts on us all. Written for the recently bereaved, Grief Sucks directly faces the wound of losing a loved one, focusing on how one can live through emotional pain and coming out the other side.

Instead of encouraging passive acceptance of mandatory stages of grief, Grief Sucks shows readers that grief is s life on loss or survival.

A brutally honest and intimate portrayal of raw grief in all its pain and ugliness, Grief Sucks rejects simple-minded words of comfort to address loss with the stark truth: This is the worst pain you will ever feel. And you will survive it.

Psychic Counselor Annette Martin.