Charlatan
America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam

Oh my God! This arrived from Amazon and I just couldn't stop reading it. It's hilarious, outrageous, informative, entertaining, and Pope Brock, despite his alarmingly ravaged looking jacket photograph, writes like an angel. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he has just the right demonic......more

This is the best book I have ever read about goat testicles. As if that weren’t enough to make you want to read it, let me add that it’s about a quack doctor who pioneered advances in advertising, public relations, radio, and modern political campaigning. For many years, his biggest problem was that......more

Either the iphone is destroying my attention span, or many popular non-fiction books would have worked far better as long magazine articles. The story of "Dr." Brinkley sounds fascinating. A major 1920s-1930s con-artist with minimal medical training successfully passes himself off as a surgeon promis......more

A history of the US as told through the life of one man, a Mr. Brinkley, who never was a doctor but still practiced "medicine" as he defined it — he made a fortune implanting goat testicles into men who wished to become more virile. He was an innovator, a self-promotor, a fantastic liar, and became......more

I have to confess that prior to reading this book I'd never heard of Dr. Brinkley, the goat-gland doctor. If you want a book that is interesting, and tells a bizarre story, this is it. I couldn't put this one down. Brock's book focuses on one John R. Brinkley, who made a name for himself by promisin......more