The Placebo Chronicles

True Tales of the ridiculous, the silly, and the just plain weird cases doctors face—lampooning the medical bureaucracy that makes practicing medicine and getting medical care such a headache. Doctors have a sick sense of humor. This is the deep, dark, and hilarious secret of the medical profession revealed by the irreverent Dr. Douglas Farrago in his popular satirical magazine, Placebo Journal—affectionately known by its thousands of fanatic readers as “Mad magazine for doctors” and called, by U.S. News.com, “raunchy, adolescent, and very funny.” Now, in The Placebo Chronicles, Dr. Farrago has compiled the best of the most outrageous and uproarious true stories to come out of the ERs and examination rooms of doctors all over the country. Submitted by actual physicians, these are the stories they tell each other at cocktail parties and in doctors’ lounges, trading sidesplitting and truly unusual tales of their most embarrassing medical moments, the grossest things they’ve ever seen in medicine, their favorite Munchausen patients, and much more, including “The X-Ray Files”—mind-boggling anecdotes and images of the oddest foreign objects doctors have removed from patients. Not for the faint of heart, the humor in The Placebo Chronicles is brutally funny—just what the doctor ordered to guard against the ill effects of an M.D.’s worst enemies: the Medical Axis of Evil, a.k.a. drug companies, HMOs, and malpractice insurers. Fully illustrated with fake advertisements—for pseudopharmaceuticals like OxyCotton Candy and Indifferex (the mediocre antidepressant)—this refreshingly honest collection invites doctors and patients alike to share the laughter, a liberal dose of the very best medicine.

Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to devastating effect. In The Pain Chronicles, a singular and deeply humane work, Melanie Thernstrom traces conceptions of pain throughout the ages—from ancient Babylonian pain-banishing spells to modern brain imaging—to reveal the elusive, mysterious nature of pain itself. Interweaving first-person reflections on her own battle with chronic pain, incisive reportage from leading-edge pain clinics and medical research, and insights from a wide range of disciplines—science, history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, literature, and art—Thernstrom shows that when dealing with pain we are neither as advanced as we imagine nor as helpless as we may fear. Both a personal meditation and an intellectual exploration, The Pain Chronicles illuminates and makes sense of the all-too-human experience of pain—and confronts with extraordinary grace and empathy its peculiar traits, its harrowing effects, and its various antidotes.

In this first action-packed novel in The Junction Chronicles, professor and acting coach Decker Roberts has the dangerous gift of detecting the truth—that turns into deadly curse. For years Decker’s rare sensory ability to discern the truth proved to be a lucrative sideline to his acting teaching. Only his closest friends know, and he keeps his "synesthete" identity secret from the companies that pay him to tell them if the people they are planning to hire are truthful. But Decker’s carefully compartmentalized life starts to fall apart. His house burns down, his credit cards are cancelled, his bank loan is called and his studio is condemned. He realizes that he must have heard something in one of his truth-telling sessions that someone didn’t want him to know. Decker has to go on the run and figure out why he’s been targeted. There’s also a government agent hunting him who seems to know absolutely everything about Decker Roberts’ identities, real and false—and other people of “his kind.” How will Decker find out which truth was endangering his life? Who betrayed him and revealed all his secrets? Decker needs to find answers quickly, before knowing the truth turns from a gift into a deadly curse.

Join Paul Dale Roberts & Shannon McCabe of H.P.I. International (Haunted & Paranormal Investigations)as they delve into the world of the paranormal with true interviews, investigations, and monster hunts. www.HPIparanormal.net

The Journey Continues is Elizabeth Highland’s second novel, her sequel to Life, Love, Soul ... Mate. Elizabeth Highland and Timothy Blumefield – what does the universe have in store for them? In this story of fate, timing, and destiny, Elizabeth and Timothy’s roller-coaster cyberspace romance carries on much to the surprise and delight of Elizabeth. Timothy is aware that Elizabeth is writing their story to share with the world and gives his total support. He confides he ‘would be most flattered to be romantically linked to her’ and slowly provokes her into writing Volume II. That was all the inspiration Elizabeth needed. She shares her story of how she became a published author, winding up in New York pitching to Hollywood executives. In this humorous portrayal of lovers, their relationship deepens by leaps and bounds and leads Elizabeth to Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Jordan, where she rides camels in the desert in her ongoing quest for spiritual guidance and inner peace. The Chronicles of Elizabeth Highland: The Journey Continues is a hilarious, romantic comedy of awakening consciousness that defies the laws of time.

A must-have collection of British whodunits featuring Detective Inspector Sloan—from a CWA Diamond Dagger winner and “most ingenious” author (The New Yorker). Over the course of twenty-four crime novels set in the fictional County of Calleshire, England, and featuring the sleuthing team of shrewd Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan and his less-than-shrewd sidekick, Detective Constable William Crosby, award-winning author Catherine Aird maintained the perfect balance between cozy village mystery and police procedural. These entertaining puzzlers offer “the very best in British mystery” (The New Yorker). The Body Politic: A British-based mineral company finds itself in hot water when one of its engineers kills a pedestrian while driving in a foreign country. The engineer is whisked back to Calleshire, but the foreign government is threatening to strip the mining company of its most valuable contract. When the engineer dies suddenly in a war reenactment, it seems a little too convenient a solution. Enter Detective Inspector Sloan. A Going Concern: In this “intricate, witty and thoroughly delightful” mystery, a bizarre clause in an elderly woman’s will that the police must be present at her funeral and the coroner should be exceptionally thorough exposes a dirty secret—and a murder for Sloan to solve (Publishers Weekly). After Effects: Dozens of elderly patients suffering from heart disease have been “gently pushed” toward taking part in a double-blind drug trial from a powerful pharmaceutical company. Now there’s been a string of eerily similar deaths. Malpractice or foul play? When the doctor in charge is found dead as well, it’s up to Sloan to see who really needs to be brought to trial. Injury Time: These sixteen “clever” short stories feature mysteries solved by Detective Inspector Sloan as well as Henry Tyler of the Foreign Office, and “serve as an excellent introduction to new readers and . . . a sure delight to fans” (Publishers Weekly).

The Marilyn Chronicles was written for one single person, the love of my life. She, this woman whom I married sixty-three years ago, is now suffering from late-stage dementia, and I am her care giver. In an effort to better understand the disease and what it is doing to my wife, I have researched, documented and built in advice to anyone who might become involved in the preservation of dignity and passion which remains in the mind of the person afflicted with the disease. The portrayal of the inevitable march toward finality is a literary approach done as a tender tribute to a remarkable woman, and its message serves as a beacon to those who want to understand and care for the person afflicted with the insidious disease called dementia. This book is my love story.

When girlfriends Stephanie Triplett and Sara Ellington realized that they were both pregnant and their babies were due just weeks apart, they began e-mailing each other constantly. Throughout their individual journeys, both women discovered many aspects of pregnancy, childbirth, and especially motherhood that no one ever seemed to talk about. Stephanie and Sara had both read every book on these subjects they could find so why weren’t they prepared for the roller-coaster ride they were about to embark on? Why hadn’t anyone ever given then the real truth about being a Mommy before?! The Mommy Chronicles is a warm, candid, and sometimes irreverent view into the lives and emotions of these two new mothers. In intimate and often hilarious detail, the authors share their own diverse-and universal-experiences as they progress from being pregnant…to being parents. Listen in on their conversations as they laugh, cry, rage, and celebrate. Labor and delivery, postpartum depression, career choices, daycare dilemmas, husbands who don't get it - it's all here, presented in an entertaining, easy-to-read format.