Welcome to my website. I am a practicing surgeon and an author and have written fiction, plays, historical novels, biographies, medical books and a large collection of short stories on a wide variety of subjects. One of my books is being considered for a TV series and another for a full-length film.
I had originally been a Theatre Arts and English and American Literature Major in College, but I came from a family with a father and brother in the medical field, so I was urged into medicine by my dad… in those days we listened to our fathers. After my first year medical school (in which admission I was assisted; perhaps since my father was a professor of surgery and also on the admissions’ committee), I went to Europe for the summer and decided to write the great American Novel and give up medicine. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the attempt was autobiographical claptrap and I decided I had better continue in medicine, and actually fell in love with surgery. This exciting profession has given me the opportunity to earn a living, as well as devote several hours each day to writing and as you will see, I have produced a number of books, all quite different.
On my web, I’ll be offering you a couple of new short stories each week and also give you the opportunity to glance at my collection of books. They vary from the true biography of a Dutchman picked up off the streets of Amsterdam at the beginning of WWII and thrown into Slave Labor by the Germans and his survival and coming to America, and a compilation of Love Letters written by my father to my mother, while he was a surgeon during WWII stationed in England and then France, giving a first hand view of the war through a surgeon’s eyes. There is a novel written by a Tree, a Bristlestone Pine (over 4,000 years old — they are the oldest living things on the planet) who developed the ability to think and transmit its being into a living child and grow up in the child’s brain, a murder mystery beginning in 1066 with the Norman Invasion in England, solved by a librarian two thousand years later, a comical adventure of an inept millionaire’s son who tries to become a brain surgeon but is too crazy to accomplish anything, and many more murder adventures and humorous writings.
There are several historical novels — one about WWII and the Internment of Japanese Americans at Manzanar, a Japanese/German boy who helps break the Japanese war code for the Americans, and a 19th century historical novel about a young man growing up to become a surgeon and meeting major figures of the eighteen hundreds as well as getting involved in discovering the identify of Jack the Ripper. There are collections of ridiculous medical poetry, a medical book on breast cancer, another called “Conquering Cancer”, and an understanding surgery book with amusing poems written for the lay public.
So, I’m just giving you a small bit of what I have to offer, and I hope you will continue to enjoy my site, peruse my books available online (in hard cover, soft cover and eBooks), and enjoy one or two short stories each week. If you tire of this or have a bellyache — I’ll be happy to remove your appendix.
Joel Berman