G. Wayne Miller – författare

Few of the great stories of medicine are as palpably dramatic as the invention of open-heart surgery, yet, until now, no journalist has ever brought all of the thrilling specifics of this triumph to life.This is the story of the surgeon many call the father of open-heart surgery, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, who, along with colleagues at University Hospital in Minneapolis and a small band of pioneers elsewhere, accomplished what many experts considered to be an impossible feat: He opened the heart, repaired fatal defects, and made the miraculous routine.Acclaimed author G. Wayne Miller draws on archival research and exclusive interviews with Lillehei and legendary pioneers such as Michael DeBakey and Christiaan Barnard, taking readers into the lives of these doctors and their patients as they progress toward their landmark achievement. In the tradition of works by Richard Rhodes and Tracy Kidder, King of Hearts tells the story of an important and gripping piece of forgotten science history.From the Hardcover edition.

G. Wayne Miller explores the drama and passion teenagers hide from everyone but their peers in this warm, funny, and eye-opening account of two kids from a small New England town as they come of age. As Dave Bettencourt, seventeen, begins his senior year of high school, there are many things he wants to do: be elected class clown; start on the varsity basketball team; turn his high school upside down with his radical underground newspaper, Total Godhead; finally convince his mother, a biology teacher, that he’ll never be a scientist; and take his strikingly beautiful girlfriend, Beth Sunn—whose passion is in-your-face rap—to the prom. Beth’s plans for her sophomore year include: loving Dave forever; being a cheerleader; surviving school; and staying absolutely cool. All over America, teens like Beth and Dave are coming of age in a world that is dramatically different from the one in which most of us grew up. But their experience is universal: They’re falling in love, defying their parents, learning to be independent, and discovering who they are. This is the true story of two kids growing up on Main Street, U.S.A., away from urban violence and the glare of the national media—a place where, despite all the pressures of a new age, it is still possible to believe the good things about being young.   “Offers a sympathetic and insightful portrait of high school life in the heartland.”—Julie Salamon, author of Devil’s Candy

THE WORK OF HUMAN HANDS is a timeless medical journey through pioneering surgeon Dr. Hardy Hendren's legendary operating room that the Los Angeles Times called "e;impossible to forget."e;Set at Boston Children's Hospital, which U.S. News & World Report consistently rates as America's best children's hospital, THE WORK OF HUMAN HANDS is available now for the first time in digital format and a new paperback will also be available soon. The new edition includes a fresh introduction and a greatly expanded epilogue updating readers on Hendren and patient Lucy Moore today.The central narrative remains an epic story of struggle against seemingly impossible odds as Hendren faces one of his biggest challenges: Lucy Moore, a fourteen-month-old girl born with life-threatening defects of the heart, central nervous system and genitourinary system. Before Hendren, surgeons regarded Lucy's condition as fatal.But at the hands of master surgeon Hendren, she will go on to lead a normal life. And Hendren is aided in that quest by Aldo R. Castaneda, the pioneering cardiac surgeon, and R. Michael Scott, the internationally renowned neurosurgeon. Hendren, Castaneda and Scott are all affiliated with the Harvard Medical School.The Work of Human Hands is also the story of a revered hospital, its lore, its people and their remarkable accomplishments – an example of the best of health care in America. Poignant and dramatic, lively and engrossing, with breathtaking insight into the craft of surgery, The Work of Human Hands is medical and literary journalism at its best."e;At a time when TV shows like Grey's Anatomy and ER win huge followings for their stories, The Work of Human Hands stands out as a real-life medical drama with a cast of uniquely colorful characters,"e; said Crossroad publisher David N. Wilson. "e;We are thrilled to publish this new edition of the classic Work of Human Hands."e;Said author G. Wayne Miller: "e;At a time when health care dominates the public discourse, and rightly so, it's refreshing to rejoice in the triumphs. American medicine truly can perform miracles."e;Today, the 14-month-old baby who spent nearly 24 hours on Hendren's operating table is a college graduate, fully healed. Hendren performed his last surgery in 2004, when he was 78, but he continues to work full-time on his non-profit W. Hardy Hendren Education Foundation for Pediatric Surgery and Urology. He still receives some of the world's most prestigious medical honors, most recently the Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons, in June 2012.The publisher and author are donating a portion of the proceeds from this edition of The Work of Human Hands to the Hendren Foundation.

State senator Ken Callahan is beginning to think his wife, Carol, is on the verge of going crazy. Her insect phobia seems to be intensifying, and it threatens repercussions not just for him and their two young children — but also his political ambitions. He is running for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, against a tough opponent. All he needs as the campaign heats up is for Carol to lose it in some public fashion. The media would crucify him. The race would be lost.And so beyond the usual reasons for buying a vacation home, Ken is pleased that his wife and kids can spend the summer there, away from the political spotlight. For her part, Carol envisions this beautiful old Victorian on acres of Berkshire County woods as a place to reset — to resume the promising artistic career she dropped when she became a mother, and maybe even rekindle relations with her driven husband.But the summer place lies in the shadow of Thunder Rise, in what Carol will discover is a vortex of malevolence made worse by the mysterious doings of the long-dead previous owner, the eccentric loner Myron Valkenburgh. Something to do with insects, Carol learns, as dragonflies seem to act as sentinels and the family dog dies a terrible death in a swarm of yellow jackets... and what started as escape spirals down into dark madness that the innocent young children Caleb and Sarah instinctively sense.Third in the Thunder Rise trilogy, Summer Place is a study in fear, paranoia, stubborn pride, and lost love — and heartless ambition ultimately destroyed by something uncontrollable and far ghostlier than a mere insect phobia.

Something is happening to the children of Morgantown...One by one, they are claimed by a strange illness that cannot be identified.Night after night, they are haunted by terrifying creatures that invade their dreams.Moment to moment, they dread the final hours of daylight. When the towering mountain called Thunder Rise casts its shadow over the town. When childhood innocence surrenders to primal fear. When evil reaches out—and into—their minds.

With the support of his wife, Sharon, young neurosurgeon Nick Emin has left medicine to pursue his longtime dream of architecture -- and now he has just won his first big contract, to design a luxury resort from the remains of an old state psychiatric hospital that lies in the shadow of Thunder Rise. It seems his decision to quit operating was wise, after all, despite the criticism he endured when he put down the scalpel.Taking up temporary residence near the long-closed Elmwood State Hospital, Nick is slowly drawn into the institution -- and back in time, to when Nazi-inspired experimental surgery on the mentally ill was conducted behind the old brick walls of Elmwood. And not just lobotomy, once so widely practiced in America...The pull of Nick into Elmwood's past is no random development or horror-novel cliché. With his neurosurgical expertise, Nick has been called for a specific reason, by a specific person he will come to know well -- someone of great importance to him. When Sharon becomes pregnant with their first child, Nick begins to understand.But first, the enigmatic Saint Peter and his friends have a mission for Nick that pits him against Elmwood's inhumane administration -- a mission of salvation with terrible consequences if it fails.A portion of the proceeds from Asylum will be donated to Zambarano State Hospital in Pascoag, R.I., in the memory of the late Frank Beazley, artist, poet and great champion of the disabled. Read the story of Frank's amazing and inspiring life at http://bit.ly/X9v3WA

One of the world’s leading neuroscientists teams up with an accomplished writer to debunk the popular left-brain/right-brain theory and offer an exciting new way of thinking about our minds.For the past fifty years, popular culture has led us to believe in the left-brain vs. right-brain theory of personality types. Right-brain people, we’ve been told, are artistic, intuitive, and thoughtful, while left-brain people tend to be more analytical, logical, and objective. It would be an illuminating theory if it did not have one major drawback: It is simply not supported by science. Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn, who Steven Pinker calls “one of the world’s great cognitive neuroscientists,” explains with cowriter G. Wayne Miller an exciting new theory of the brain. Presenting extensive research in an inviting and accessible way, Kosslyn and Miller describe how the human brain uses patterns of thought that can be identified and understood through four modes of thinking: Mover, Perceiver, Stimulator, and Adaptor. Once you’ve identified your usual mode of thought, the practical applications are limitless, from how you work with others when you conduct business, to your personal relationships, to your voyage of self-discovery. The second edition of Top Brain, Bottom Brain includes expanded practical applications and highlights how readers can harness the theory to succeed in their own lives.

What is it that makes a man strap himself into an automobile and drive it hundreds of laps around a track at speeds surpassing 200 miles per hour? Critically acclaimed journalist G. Wayne Miller decided to find out by spending a year on the NASCAR circuit with Roush Racing's legendary owner Jack Roush and his four title-contending Winston Cup drivers: Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, and Kurt Busch. Miller plumbs the allure of speed and the exploding popularity of stock-car racing through the dramatic 2001 season, which opened with the most famous Daytona 500 in history, when NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt died as his car slammed into the wall on the final turn. Miller takes us inside the minds and behind the wheels of the of the hottest drivers of the past two seasons, as they cope with the thrills and the dangers along the way to the Cup. Miller also takes us inside Roush Racing, a 125 million business, showing a side of NASCAR that few fans ever get to see. For longtime fans and curious newcomers alike, Men and Speed takes you for a wild ride through the fastest sport in the land.

Before the Big Three," even before the Model T, the race for dominance in the American car market was fierce, fast, and sometimes farcical. Car Crazy takes readers back to the passionate and reckless years of the early automobile era, from 1893, when the first US-built auto was introduced, through 1908, when General Motors was founded and Ford's Model T went on the market. The motorcar was new, paved roads few, and devotees of this exciting and unregulated technology battled with citizens who considered the car a dangerous scourge, wrought by the wealthy, that was shattering a more peaceful way of life.Among the pioneering competitors were Ransom E. Olds, founder of Olds Motor Works and creator of a new company called REO Olds' cutthroat new CEO Frederic L. Smith William C. Billy" Durant of Buick Motor Company (and soon General Motors) and inventor Henry Ford. They shared a passion for innovation, both mechanical and entrepreneurial, but their maniacal pursuit of market share would also involve legal manipulation, vicious smear campaigns, and zany publicity stunts,including a wild transcontinental car race that transfixed the public. Their war on wheels ultimately culminated in a courtroom battle that would shape the American car industry forever.Based on extensive original research, Car Crazy is a page-turning story of popular culture, business, and sport at the dawn of the twentieth century, filled with compelling, larger-than-life characters, each an American original.