"In short, engaging scenarios, Dr. Appel takes on hot-button issues that many of us will confront: genetic screening, sexuality, privacy, doctor-patient confidentiality. He unpacks each hypothetical with a brief reflection drawing from science, philosophy, and history, explaining how others have approached these controversies in real-world cases. Who Says You're Dead? is designed to defy easy answers and to stimulate thought and even debate among...

Phoning Home is a collection of entertaining and thought-provoking essays featuring the author's quirky family, his Jewish heritage, and his New York City upbringing. Jacob M. Appel's recollections and insights, informed and filtered by his advanced degrees in medicine, law, and ethics, not only inspire nostalgic feelings but also offer insight into contemporary medical and ethical issues. At times sardonic and at others self-deprecating, Appel lays...

In this new collection of short stories by New York writer Jacob M. Appel, two brothers fight over a stockpile of antique iron lungs, an elderly suburbanite campaigns for the right to sunbathe topless on her lawn, and a couple whose retirement home is accidentally delivered to the wrong address discovers the current occupant might have other plans for it. Each of the tales in The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street takes ordinary people to the brink...

Jacob M. Appel’s ninth collection of short stories features a missing psychiatric patient, a disgruntled alligator wrestler, a whale watch gone wrong and a love triangle set against the backdrop of John B. Anderson’s failed presidential campaign. As in his previous collections, Appel’s characters drift close to the edge of middle-class stability, always on the brink of toppling into the abyss.

Drawing upon the author's two decades teaching medical ethics, as well as his work as a practicing psychiatrist, this profound and addictive little book offers up challenging ethical dilemmas and asks listeners, What would you do? - A daughter gets tested to see if she's a match to donate a kidney to her father. The test reveals that she is not the man's biological daughter. Should the doctor tell the father? Or the daughter? - A deaf couple prefers...