In this warm-spirited picture book from Regnery Kids, the fireworks of the Fourth of July do not merely fade into memory; they ignite a child’s dreams of the long, improbable road from Plymouth Rock to the balcony of Federal Hall.

The story opens in the present tense of a contemporary backyard celebration. A little boy, still buzzing from sparklers and hot dogs, asks his father why Americans sing of “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” The father’s gentle answer—that brave men once fought all night so a flag might still wave at dawn—plants the seed.

When the boy is tucked in beside his golden retriever puppy, that seed blossoms into a vivid, first-person dream. He sails on the storm-lashed Mayflower with the Pilgrims, shivering through their first brutal winter and rejoicing at the first Thanksgiving feast shared with Squanto and the Patuxet people. He slips into Boston Harbor with the Sons of Liberty to dump tea into the dark water, rides hell-for-leather beside Paul Revere, and helps ring the Liberty Bell after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He flies a kite with Ben Franklin in a thunderstorm, crosses the ice-choked Delaware with General Washington, and watches the British surrender at Yorktown.

Later the boy sits in the sweltering room where the Constitution is debated and cheers as George Washington takes the oath of office in New York City, the nation’s first capital.

What elevates the book beyond a brisk trot through famous dates is the dream device. Because the boy is not a passive spectator but an eager participant—clutching a small flag, straining on tiptoe to ring the great bell, huddling in Washington’s boat—the reader feels the emotional stakes of each moment. The ever-present puppy supplies both comic relief and emotional continuity, a furry thread stitching 1620 to 1789.

When the child awakens, still clutching his flag, the dream does not dissolve into mere fantasy; it propels him and his parents toward a large map of the U.S., where they begin placing the very icons he has just visited. The final pages thus transform bedtime into a quiet call to civic engagement: history is not finished; it is a place you can still go.

Paul writes with a light, confident hand that trusts children to grasp large ideas when they are wrapped in story. The Mayflower Compact becomes an early promise that people can make their own rules. The Declaration’s assertion that rights come from God, not kings, is explained without jargon. The Bill of Rights is introduced through the boy’s delight that Americans will always be free to speak their minds. None of this feels didactic; it feels like the natural conversation a curious child might have with a parent who loves the country enough to explain it clearly.

Monesi’s illustrations match the text’s tone perfectly—rich yet never fussy, historically evocative without descending into costume drama. Fireworks bloom across night skies, candlelight flickers in colonial taverns, and the icy Delaware glitters with menace and beauty. Historical figures are rendered with humanity: Washington looks resolute but kind; Franklin twinkles with curiosity; the boy’s wide eyes invite every young reader to imagine stepping into the frame. The recurring motif of the American flag, sometimes tattered, sometimes triumphant, gives the visual narrative a quiet emotional spine.

Good Night, Young American offers families a gentle yet substantive way to mark 2026. In an age when much children’s literature treats patriotism as a problem to be solved, Paul presents an unapologetic yet age-appropriate affirmation of the founding. She does not pretend the path was bloodless or that every promise was immediately kept; the cold, the hunger, and the long war are acknowledged. But she insists that the destination—a self-governing republic rooted in the conviction that liberty is a gift worth defending—was worth the cost.

That conviction, offered without irony or apology, is precisely what many parents will welcome as the nation turns 250.

When the boy finally whispers, “What a wonderful dream I have had… because I was there,” he models the imaginative leap that turns passive inheritance into active stewardship.

Good Night, Young American is more than a charming bedtime story. It is an invitation to raise a generation that knows not only the words of the National Anthem but the nights of courage that gave those words their meaning.

As we near July 4, this is the book to read aloud after the parades have ended and the sparklers have cooled off—when the house is quiet, the flag is folded for the night, and a child’s dreams are still forming.

[Good Night, Young American: A Bedtime Journey Through America’s Story, by Kelley Paul and illustrated by Marika Monesi, publishes July 2 by Regnery Kids. It’s available on Amazon in hardcover, for Kindle, and as an audiobook.]

Shop our merch store to support the MAHA Report and the MAHA movement.

All proceeds go to supporting the cause.

MAHA Merch Store

Side Effects May Include Everything: A Guide to Living and Thriving with Chronic Illness (MAHA Books, July 14) is less a clinical manual than an authentic guide—one written by someone who has spent more than two decades inside the labyrinth of autoimmune disease and emerged not merely intact, but determined to light the path for others.

Zeppieri was 8 when her symptoms began and nearly 23 when she finally received a lupus diagnosis after years of being dismissed, gaslit, or told she was “too young to be this sick.” Those “mystery years,” as she calls them, form the emotional spine of the book.

Zeppieri moves briskly into the messy realities that follow diagnosis: the way illness infiltrates careers, marriages, sex lives, friendships, finances, and self-worth. Chapter titles such as “The Chronic Illness Relationship Audit,” “Love (and Sex) in the Time of Cholera… Chronic Illness,” and “Reimagining The Daily Grind” signal her refusal to treat any part of life as off-limits. The tone is conversational, often laugh-out-loud funny, and mercifully free of both medical jargon and the cloying cheer of much wellness literature.

What sets the book apart is its rare blend of vulnerability and pragmatism. Zeppieri is unafraid to describe the days she needed a home nurse to shower her or cried in her car outside the pharmacy because she couldn’t afford her prescriptions. But she is equally generous with hard-won strategies: how to advocate in 15-minute doctor appointments, how to disclose (or not) a condition at work, how to navigate intimacy when pain and medication conspire against desire.

She tackles medical PTSD with particular sensitivity, offering both conventional therapeutic approaches and somatic practices that honor the body’s stored trauma.

At the book’s heart lies “The Root & Bloom Protocol,” a three-tiered, patient-designed framework Zeppieri developed from her own trial-and-error journey. Tier 1 (“Root”) focuses on foundational testing, dietary shifts, and gut repair. Tier 2 (“Grow”) layers in functional medicine, targeted supplementation, and environmental toxin reduction. Tier 3 (“Bloom”) introduces advanced supportive therapies such as IV nutrition, hyperbaric treatment, and hydrotherapy. Flexible “sub-tiers” address bodywork, creative expression, and spiritual practice.

Crucially, Zeppieri makes no cure-all promises. She still takes pharmaceuticals. She is clear that healing is not linear and that what works for her may not work for everyone. The protocol is presented not as dogma but as a generous map drawn by someone who has walked the terrain.

The result is a book that feels like the wise, slightly irreverent friend you wish you’d had on diagnosis day—the one who tells you it’s OK to grieve the life you thought you’d have, then gently hands you tools to build a different one that is still full of purpose and joy.

Zeppieri’s Italian-family candor, journalistic clarity, and quiet faith (the book is dedicated to “the God who sees”) create a voice that is both authoritative and deeply relatable.

In an era when millions live with invisible illnesses, Side Effects May Include Everything arrives as a genuinely useful and humane contribution.It will not erase anyone’s pain. But it may, as Zeppieri hopes, make the burden feel a little less lonely and a great deal more manageable.

For patients, caregivers, and even clinicians who want to understand the daily texture of chronic illness beyond the chart notes, this is essential reading.

This is the kind of book readers will press into the hands of friends and family with the quiet urgency of someone who has finally been truly seen.

[Side Effects May Include Everything: A Guide to Living and Thriving with Chronic Illness, by Marisa Zeppieri, to be published by MAHA Books on July 14, is available for pre-order from Amazon.]

Shop our merch store to support the MAHA Report and the MAHA movement.

All proceeds go to supporting the cause.

MAHA Merch Store

That patriotism sparked a post from President Trump, who wrote about the book on his Truth Social Platform: “As we celebrate our Nation’s 250th Birthday, Eric [Metaxas] honors the Faith, Wisdom, and Courage of the Great Patriots who sacrificed so much to secure our Independence. These stories of our shared past inspire us to build a future bigger, greater, and stronger than ever before. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

Skyhorse Publishing President Tony Lyons recently appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “War Room” (which streams on Rumble), praising the Metaxas book as “epic” but also reporting that the book is being suppressed and censored.

“What we know is that it hit No. 2 on The New York Times Bestseller list,” Lyons said. “It should have hit No. 1. It was No. 1 on Amazon for the week it launched, and Jill Biden’s book, which sold far fewer copies and was No. 5 on Amazon, hit No. 1 on the Times list.”

Lyons also told Bannon that Metaxas’ book had the highest sales, despite political action committees buying copies of Jill Biden’s book to inflate numbers. Not only was Revolution No. 1 on Amazon for the week of June 7, Lyons said, but it was also No. 1 on Bookscan – which tracks sales in bookstores nationwide – and, for the week of June 11, #1 on Publisher’s Weekly and #1 on The Baltimore Sun.

Lyons said, “Two weeks after publication of both books, Revolution is #175 on Amazon, while Biden’s book has shriveled to #897. Books with organic sales, consumer sales, tend to have staying power.”

Yet despite moves to diminish the book’s reach and relevance, Revolution has struck a chord among readers – and well it should.

The immediate value of Revolution is in its exquisite nonfiction storytelling. The story begins before the war, in what Metaxas calls “the revolution before the revolution,” and recounts the historical and cultural context of the two nations as tensions escalate into open war. The gritty details of the war are surveyed, not so much as a military treatise but as a study of human character and the values that shaped the revolution.

The magnitude of this brilliant and beautifully written book is beyond the capacity of a review to capture, but it includes a recounting of the pivotal episodes in American history; and tracing the leaders and groups who emerged to lead the rebellion and subsequent war. Metaxas relies heavily on primary sources and creates vivid scenes, with help from 16 pages of art reproductions, bringing these dusty stories to a fresh, modern understanding. The reader learns about the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, the Boston Massacre and subsequent legal proceedings, including the Boston Tea Party, the battle of Bunker (Breed’s) Hill, and Paul Revere’s ride. Also peppered throughout the book are details of the gruesome realities of war and how the nation’s founders suffered.

Throughout this gripping true-life tale, Metaxas incorporates quotations from the actual participants, conveying a deeper understanding of an ordeal we moderns often take for granted. Readers will read speeches by George Washington for the first time, and trace the emergence of patriotic luminaries like John and Sam Adams, Nathan Hale, Thomas Jefferson, and, of course, George Washington. These larger-than-life patriots are brought down to real life, and their motives and backgrounds are related in a way that personalizes them and reveals their humility and courage.

Metaxas himself was awed by what he learned in his research about these heroes, noting in a recent email to The MAHA Report: “When I set out to write this profound story, it was the discovery of the character of the men involved in the Revolution that STUNNED me.”

Readers may be stunned, too.

In the book, Metaxas tells the story of the young Nathan Hale, who famously said, just before he was hanged for spying on the British for the patriot cause: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Metaxas offers readers a biography tracing Hale’s education, faith, and tremendous accomplishments. By the age of 20, Hale had been promoted to captain in Connecticut’s Seventh Regiment, where he quickly distinguished himself by his piety, intellect, and bravery. Revolution relates a gripping story of Hale trying to steal a British supply ship moored off the coast.

“When the men in the sloop went to sleep, Hale’s plan was to sneak onto the ship, unmoor it, and then guide it quietly to the American side,” Metaxas writes. “When the man guarding the sloop at last said ‘All’s well!’ and went below, Hale knew it was time, soon after creeping aboard the vessel, and successfully guiding her to the wharf. It was a heroic effort, widely celebrated by the Americans.”

Hale agreed to join an elite espionage group called Knowlton’s Rangers, where he was the only member willing to slip into British-controlled territory to gather reconnaissance for General Washington. Most Americans know how the story ends, with Hale captured and hanged. But Metaxas adds depth and context perhaps available nowhere else: the names and characters of the British officers, descriptions of what Hale said and wore, and the route he traveled.

Metaxas extols the intelligence, discipline, and faith of the American founders, qualities that infused their against-all-odds determination to risk everything for the liberties the nation celebrates still in 2026. His critique of the British gentry and their hedonistic excesses incorporates tales not generally recounted in elementary school textbooks, such as the rape and murder of civilians by British regulars, and the torture and starvation of prisoners.

Metaxas focuses the reader’s attention on virtue and character, noting that “all the Founders believed for virtue to thrive, we must be a culture of robust religious faith,” and that the men leading the Revolution on the American side believed that they were engaged in something that was both divinely inspired and divinely directed. This dauntless assertion is a direct shot across the secular bow of modern efforts to portray all of the founders as deists and dismiss the central role of the Christian faith in the American Revolution. Metaxas is volleying in the nation’s ongoing American history wars, and he knows it.

He writes in the epilogue: “It seems impossible that we might sustain the liberty bequeathed to us by the men of the Revolutionary era without a culture as dedicated to faith and virtue as theirs.”

Metaxas is a gracious writer who tells our country’s story in a bipartisan, engaging way. He is not cudgeling readers; he is beguiling them with the art of the master storyteller.

This is a time, and a book, that should bring Americans together in gratitude for our heritage. It is, above all, a celebration of what unites us.

[Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World, by Eric Metaxas, was published on June 2, 2026 by Skyhorse Publishing. It is available in bookstores nationwide and on Amazon in hardcover, for Kindle and as an audiobook.]

If you’d like to support the MAHA Report and the MAHA movement

shop our merch store. All proceeds go to supporting the cause.

MAHA Merch Store

Related Stories:

Young, a self-taught gardener whose writing has appeared in Country Living, WestCoast, and Martha Stewart Living, and Ottaviano, an artist, performer with the band Book of Love, and experienced recipe developer and food stylist, bring complementary strengths to the project.

They previously collaborated on the 2023 book The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants and Flowers. In this new work they shift focus more directly toward healing—practical, emotional, and spiritual—while retaining a deep respect for plant traditions and folklore. The result feels less like a reference manual and more like a companion for daily life.

The book is organized into nine thematic chapters plus a joyful closing section called “The Healing Garden Picnic.” The chapters move from the physical (“Heal Your Body”) through the emotional and relational (“Heal Your Heart,” “Heal Your Life”) to the more inward realms of mind, sleep, skin, and soul. Each section offers a mix of teas and tonics, body-care preparations, simple nourishing foods, and small rituals.

What distinguishes the collection is the consistent, unforced invitation to approach these activities with intention. In Achilles’s Yarrow Headache Tea, readers are asked to focus on their breath while the herbs simmer. Morgana’s Garlic, Lemon, and Ginger Healing Tea includes a quiet moment to set an intention for healing and peace. These mindfulness prompts are woven throughout the book rather than tacked on. They turn the act of preparation itself into part of the remedy.

Ottaviano’s illustrations are integral to the book’s appeal. Created with colored pencils and Sennelier oil pastels, then cut and assembled by hand, they possess a textured, deliberately low-tech warmth. A stack of mismatched teacups spilling over with yarrow and chamomile, a whimsical blue stove surrounded by drying herbs and copper pots, a single luminous eye beneath a banner that reads “THE END—SEE YOU NEXT TIME!”—these images do more than decorate the pages. They slow the reader down. In a publishing world dominated by polished photography, the visible hand of the artist becomes its own quiet argument for presence and care.

The recipes themselves are accessible without feeling too basic. Many rely on ingredients that are easy to find or grow, yet the combinations are thoughtful and appealing. Calendula and bergamot come together in a melt-and-pour soap that doubles as an anti-inflammatory ritual. A spinach, fig, and walnut salad is dressed with aquafaba and miso. There is elderberry syrup for immune support, blood-orange tonic, lavender and pistachio chocolate bark for winding down, and rhubarb lemonade for summer afternoons. Short “Did You Know?” sidebars supply historical and mythological context—linking yarrow to the Greek hero Achilles or noting that medieval Europeans called calendula the “herb of the sun”—without turning the book into a scholarly treatise. The tone remains generous and encouraging: experiment, trust your intuition, compost the spent herbs, and enjoy the process.

What the book captures especially well is the full spectrum of healing the authors want to address. It moves easily from the physical relief of a headache tea to the emotional comfort of a heartbreak-helper blend named for Orpheus, from practical home-protection sprays to the deeper practices of earthing and forest bathing in the “Heal Your Soul” chapter

.The final picnic section feels like a natural culmination rather than an afterthought. Recipes for garden gin-and-tonic jars and hibiscus poached pears sit alongside reminders that joy and shared food are themselves restorative. Healing, in this view, is not only about fixing what hurts but also about noticing what already feels alive.

Plants That Heal arrives at a moment when many people, especially those in big cities, are seeking gentler, more grounded ways to care for themselves. Interest in herbalism, slow living, and nature connection has grown steadily in recent years, yet much of what fills bookshelves can feel either overly clinical or vaguely mystical.

Young and Ottaviano occupy a welcome middle ground. They respect ancient plant wisdom and mythic storytelling while keeping their feet firmly in the practical present. The emphasis on organic ingredients, cruelty-free methods, and simple sustainability (recycle jars, compost herbs, grow what you can) aligns with contemporary values without becoming preachy.

The book never claims to cure disease; a clear disclaimer reminds readers to consult healthcare professionals. Its contribution is different and, in its own way, valuable: it offers a sensory, repeatable path back to the plants that have supported human well-being for centuries.

The authors’ voices keep the pages inviting. Chris writes about intuition and gratitude with quiet conviction. Susan describes cooking as a love language and celebrates the pleasure of making art the old-fashioned way. Together, they create a tone that feels personal rather than prescriptive. Readers are encouraged to adapt recipes, substitute what they have on hand, and discover what works for their own bodies and lives.

Plants That Heal is not a book to race through. It is one to keep on the kitchen counter or bedside table, to return to when a headache needs easing, when a season is changing, or when the simple act of steeping herbs feels like the most radical thing one can do that day. In its pages, wellness becomes less a goal to achieve and more a practice of noticing, of caring, and of letting the green world do what it has always done best—offer its steady, fragrant support.

[Plants That Heal: Plant-based Wisdom for Body, Mind & Soul, by Chris Young and Susan Ottaviano, illustrated by Ottaviano, will be published by Skyhorse on July 7, 2026. It’s available for pre-order through Amazon.]

— William F. Supple Jr., PhD

How many times did a parent or teacher tell you to be careful of the sun, wear a hat, apply sunscreen, and so on?

But what if all these well-meaning people were wrong? What if the sun is really our friend and is good for us?

That is part of the argument put forward by William F. Supple Jr., a Dartmouth-trained neuroscientist specializing in systems neurobiology, learning, and memory. In his new book, The Sunlight Solution (MAHA Books/Skyhorse Publishing, June 23, 2026), Supple says that the systematic campaign to remove sunlight from American life is making us vitamin D deficient and thereby driving epidemic levels of chronic disease.

Citing hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, Supple walks readers through the major physiological systems affected by vitamin D deficiency, from cardiovascular health and immune function to brain development and metabolic disease.

Nearly 80% of Americans now have at least one chronic disease, with 51.4% reporting multiple chronic conditions. This is up from 11% in the 1960s, according to the CDC, and is also the epidemic MAHA was created to reverse. Supple argues that if we fix vitamin D deficiency we take a major step toward helping Americans heal.

To understand why fixing vitamin D is so important, it’s equally important to note that it’s not really a vitamin at all. It is a master hormone, with receptors on virtually every cell in the body. That fact reframes everything that follows, starting with the cancer that the sun-avoidance campaign was created to prevent.

The Melanoma Paradox

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, and for 50 years it has been the justification for the sun avoidance recommendation. But the data tells a stranger story, as Supple lays out with detailed evidence in Chapter 25. Melanoma frequently occurs on areas of the body that get little to no sun exposure, including the soles of the feet, palms, under fingernails, mucosal membranes and the groin.

People who work outside and get chronic sun exposure tend to have lower melanoma risk than indoor workers who get occasional intense exposure. Most striking, a Swedish study of 30,000 women found that avoiding the sun carries an all-cause mortality risk comparable to smoking.

Vitamin D deficiency is now linked to worse melanoma survival, meaning decades of sun-avoidance advice may have made the very cancer it was designed to prevent more deadly.

Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?

Americans started replacing butter with margarine to prevent heart disease, only to discover that trans fats were more dangerous than the butter. The same pattern is unfolding with sunscreen. The FDA’s own funded studies confirmed that oxybenzone, octinoxate, and other common sunscreen chemicals are absorbed systemically after a single application, reaching plasma concentrations more than 500 times the FDA’s safety threshold within days. And the damage from sun avoidance is not just skin deep; its far-reaching effects go to the bones and muscles as well.

Sunlight and Muscle

Skeletal muscle cells contain vitamin D receptors, and muscles that contain type II fast-twitch fibers have the highest concentration of vitamin D receptors. These muscle fibers dominate quick movements, like catching yourself before a fall. When vitamin D levels fall, these fibers shrink, setting off a preventable cascade of weakness, pain, inactivity, atrophy, fracture, hospitalization, and, in elderly patients, often death. Hip fractures in the elderly carry a one-year mortality rate of roughly 20 to 30% due to complications.

Vitamin D also inhibits myostatin, the body’s natural brake on muscle growth, so a deficiency suppresses muscle growth and strength, even when actively lifting weights. In the muscle chapter of The Sunlight Solution Supple writes that sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle, is not a disease of aging – instead, it’s a disease of chronic vitamin D starvation. That same deficiency that weakens muscles can also weaken the brain.

Immunity, the Brain, and the Autism Connection

Vitamin D is among the most potent modulators of immune-driven inflammation, which is the common mechanism underlying cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegeneration, and autoimmunity. Supple documents a decline in NIH funding for vitamin D research, finding a drop from $52.4 million to $10.5 million in 2024, even as evidence of its systemic significance has grown.

Then there is the autism question. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made this a central mission at HHS, and Supple’s evidence points squarely to one factor that has gone largely ignored. A recent study found that only 1.36% of pregnant women have sufficient vitamin D levels. Supple presents evidence that chronic maternal vitamin D deficiency creates a neuroinflammatory vulnerability in the developing brain, one that is then worsened by the neurotoxic exposures including sunscreen chemicals.

Supple extends his vitamin D argument into microplastics. In a recent Substack essay, he argues that microplastics may contribute to chronic inflammation in tissues, while vitamin D helps regulate the immune response that determines how much damage that inflammatory burden causes.

The science is still emerging, but the point fits the theme of The Sunlight Solution. In a world filled with modern environmental stressors, restoring vitamin D sufficiency may be one of the simplest ways to strengthen the body’s natural defenses.

For the MAHA movement, which is working to identify environmental and biological insults that may contribute to the autism epidemic, a population-wide hormone deficiency in pregnant women is a point that cannot be ignored. And the neuroinflammation appears to be reversible in children who have already been diagnosed. A clinical trial published in BMC Pediatrics found that after 15 weeks of vitamin D supplementation, children with ASD showed significant drops in inflammatory markers and meaningful improvement in behavioral symptoms.

This is just one of the many significant findings in Supple’s essential book. As the author helps me consider: There are real reasons a patch of sunlight feels so therapeutic, why we turn our faces toward it the way plants lean toward a window. We are built to seek the sun, and being told to fear it runs against something very primal in us. We are not meant to live in the shadows. We need the sun the way we need food, water, and sleep, along with the vitamin D that only it can fully give us.

Supple makes his case eloquently and with deeply researched science, showing how a single beam of light improves our physical and mental health, our resilience, and even the length of our lives. Sunlight is not a luxury or a hazard to be managed. It is a basic biological need, as old as life itself, and we should not let big medicine talk us out of the very thing we have always, instinctively, reached for.

# # #

The Sunlight Solution: Reclaiming Vitamin D, Reversing the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and Making America Healthy Again, by William F. Supple Jr., is scheduled for release by MAHA Books, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, on June 23 and is available for pre-order here.

The Sunlight Solution: Reclaiming Vitamin D, Reversing the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and Making America Healthy Again, by William F. Supple Jr., is scheduled for release by MAHA Books, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, on June 23 and is available for pre-order here.

[This book review was originally published in Malone News. Republished here with permission from the author.]

Malone News

A Birthday Worth Defending

For a generation, Americans have been taught to approach their own country’s birthday as a dark day in history. The founding, we are told, was irredeemably compromised. The men who created the nation were hypocrites who spoke of liberty while tolerating slavery, and the proper response to 1776 is not gratitude or admiration, but discomfort…

Read more

a month ago · 434 likes · 72 comments · Dr. Robert W. Malone

For a generation, Americans have been taught to approach their own country’s birthday as a dark day in history. The founding, we are told, was irredeemably compromised. The men who created the nation were hypocrites who spoke of liberty while tolerating slavery, and the proper response to 1776 is not gratitude or admiration, but discomfort.

Eric Metaxas rejects that view, and thank God for that.

Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World arrives at exactly the right moment, as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. It does something that much of our educational, cultural, and political establishment has spent decades discouraging. It celebrates the American founding.

Metaxas argues that what emerged in 1776 was not merely a successful rebellion against British rule. It was a genuinely revolutionary event that changed the course of human history. Unlike the French, Russian, Chinese, and countless other revolutions that promised liberty and delivered tyranny, the American Revolution produced a constitutional republic built on individual rights, self-government, and the radical idea that legitimate power comes from the consent of the governed.

Very little in our culture today encourages Americans to understand what was achieved in 1776, much less take pride in it. Metaxas reminds readers that the American story is not one of perfection. It is the story of an imperfect people who created something extraordinary. A nation that forgets how it was founded will eventually lose what made it worth preserving in the first place.

At its heart, this book is a reminder that our inheritance is real, that it is worth defending, and that Americans should not be ashamed of it.

The New York Times moved the date on purpose

A few years ago, The New York Times advanced the argument that America’s true founding was not 1776, but 1619, the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. This was not simply a dispute over dates. It was an attempt to redefine the nation’s origin story.

If the country begins with slavery rather than liberty, then the Declaration, the Constitution, the Founders, and the principles of self-government become secondary at best and fraudulent at worst. The founding ideals are transformed from aspirations into excuses.

The problem was that many of the project’s central historical claims did not withstand scrutiny. Criticism came not only from conservatives but from prominent historians on the political left, several of whom publicly challenged key assertions. In response, The New York Times quietly revised portions of its presentation. Yet by then, the objective had largely been achieved. The debate was no longer about whether the founding principles were true. It was about whether they deserved to remain at the center of America’s inception. They put the idea in the minds of everyday Americans that the founding was based on maintaining slavery and not on freedom, democracy, and a constitutional republic.

That is the challenge Metaxas takes on directly.

The title alone makes the case. Revolution requires no qualifier because, in Metaxas’s telling, the American Revolution stands apart from every other event that has claimed the name. The French Revolution descended into terror. The Russian Revolution produced totalitarianism. Again and again, revolutions have promised freedom and delivered concentrated power.

The American Revolution was different because it began with a radically different premise: that rights do not originate with governments, kings, legislatures, or political movements. They are inherent to the individual, endowed by God, and therefore beyond the legitimate reach of any ruler to grant, redefine, or revoke. Everything else follows from that proposition. It is the foundation of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the American experiment itself.

This is also why the debate over 1619 matters. At its core, the argument was never about chronology. It was about whether America’s defining principle should be liberty or oppression, whether the nation’s story should be understood through its highest ideals or its greatest failures.

The two visions cannot occupy the same place in the national narrative.

Metaxas unapologetically places the American founding and the principles that animated it back at the center of the story. More importantly, he spends more than six hundred fascinating pages demonstrating why they belong there.

A storyteller, not a lecturer

What saves this from being a sermon is that Metaxas can actually tell a story. The author understands something many historians do not. People learn through stories. Ideas matter, but ideas become real when they are attached to events and the men and women who lived them.

Rather than treating the American Revolution as a collection of dates and documents, Metaxas tells it as a story.

He begins before the shooting starts, with what John Adams called the “revolution before the Revolution.” The story unfolds through the legal and political battles that preceded open conflict: the challenge to British authority, the Stamp Act, the Townshend duties, the growing military presence in Boston, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party. By the time Lexington and Concord arrive, the reader understands that war did not emerge from a single incident. It was the culmination of years of escalating conflict between a people who increasingly saw themselves as free and a government determined to treat them as subjects.

From there come the moments every American recognizes, even if many no longer know them well. Henry Knox hauling artillery from Fort Ticonderoga through winter conditions that few thought navigable. Washington crossing the Delaware and launching the Trenton campaign when the cause appeared close to collapse. Saratoga. Valley Forge. Benedict Arnold’s betrayal. Yorktown.

Metaxas tells these stories with energy and detail, but the storytelling serves a larger purpose. He is not asking the reader to admire a set of abstract principles. He is showing how those principles survived because ordinary and extraordinary individuals chose sacrifice, risk, and perseverance when failure would have been easier and surrender more comfortable.

That is ultimately why the book works. The American founding emerges not as mythology, but as the product of real people making difficult choices under extraordinary circumstances. The ideas matter because the people who carried them forward were willing to pay the price required to make them real.

The warning: A republic, if you can keep it

The most important part of the book may be the epilogue.

There, Metaxas turns to a question that modern Americans often avoid: What made the American experiment possible in the first place? His answer, drawn from the words of the founders themselves, is that the Revolution and the republic it produced rested on a moral and religious foundation.

He points to John Adams’s warning that the Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and was wholly inadequate for any other. He recalls George Washington’s caution in his Farewell Address that religion and morality were indispensable supports of political prosperity and national character.

This is not an argument for theocracy. It is an argument about the limits of government.

Metaxas, drawing in part on the work of Os Guinness, argues that freedom requires virtue, virtue requires moral formation, and moral formation depends on institutions and beliefs that exist outside the state. A free society can sustain limited government only if enough citizens possess the character and self-restraint necessary to govern themselves. The government cannot create those qualities by decree.

That insight lies at the heart of the American constitutional system. The founders did not believe that liberty would survive automatically. They understood that self-government ultimately depends on a culture capable of sustaining it.

Which brings the reader back to Benjamin Franklin’s famous response after the Constitutional Convention. Asked what form of government had been created, he answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

That is the question hanging over America’s 250th anniversary.

The celebration of America’s founding is deserved. The achievements are real. But anniversaries are not merely occasions for remembrance. They are opportunities for self-examination. The generation that inherited this republic is now responsible for preserving it.

Be clear about what Metaxas has written.

This is not a conventional academic history. It is not detached, ironic, or hesitant. It is written by an author who believes the American founding was one of the most consequential events in human history and who is willing to defend that proposition without apology.

That alone will make many liberal readers uncomfortable.

For decades, much of America’s historical and cultural establishment has approached the founding primarily through the lens of its failures and contradictions. Of course, the United States is not perfect, and the past deserves honest examination. But a nation cannot endure if it remembers only its sins and forgets its achievements. A people taught to be ashamed of their inheritance will not preserve it for long.

Metaxas takes a different approach. He does not ask readers to ignore the imperfections of the founders. He asks them to understand what those founders accomplished, why it mattered, and why the principles they articulated changed the course of history.

Whether one agrees with every argument in the book is almost beside the point. The larger contribution is that Metaxas is willing to state plainly what many modern writers seem reluctant to acknowledge: the American experiment was extraordinary, its success was far from inevitable, and its continuation is not guaranteed.

That is why this book arrives at exactly the right moment.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Americans face a choice. We can teach the next generation that our history is little more than a catalog of grievances, or we can teach them that free people built something remarkable, flawed but worthy, and that its preservation now rests in their hands.

Read this book before Independence Day.

Then give it to your children, your grandchildren, or someone young enough to inherit the country we leave behind. The American Revolution created a republic. Every generation since has been responsible for keeping it.

Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World is published by Odysseus Books.

Available from Amazon at this link, and from all good booksellers.

Mellon gave a stunning $151 million to Trump’s super PAC, and $25 million to PAC supporting Kennedy. He also provided significant financial backing for Children’s Health Defense, which until 2023 was chaired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But who is Timothy Mellon?

When The New York Times published an article about him in 2025, reporting that he was the anonymous donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to pay the troops during the budget shutdown, the only photo they could find of him was from 1981.

Luckily, Mellon has written a book, PanAm. Captain, that reveals far more than that old picture; it tells a remarkable, picaresque life journey of adventure and learning.

Mellon recounts his childhood and school years in the 1950s, then moves on to his career as a pilot, including his stewardship as chairman of PanAm Systems for a time. He takes us to the halls of Yale University, to the skies as a pilot, and through marriages and business ventures.

He graduated from Yale and was admitted to Yale Law School, but quickly dropped out to study city planning and then switched again to immerse himself in computer programming.

Computer programming led Mellon into several business ventures until he settled on cutting and coating railroad ties. Soon, he jumped the tracks (literally) into the railroad business, buying up and streamlining various declining railroad companies. This, in turn, led him to purchase the former Pan Am airline franchise out of bankruptcy and eventually learn to fly the company’s 727s so he could serve as a pilot.

He built numerous homes in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Wyoming, as well as a Norwegian “loft” home made of pine logs, and a stave church patterned after historical Norwegian examples.

What matures from this journey is a worldview constructed not from classroom studies or elitist backroom dealings, but rather from a blue-collar work ethic and a disdain for unscrupulous gain. These lessons begin to coalesce in the later chapters as the author’s life lessons converge with his retelling.

The book’s underlying messages come slowly, but they’re worth the wait.

Mellon of course was born into the Mellon banking family, the grandson of Gilded Age financier and treasury secretary Andrew Mellon, but Timothy’s book doesn’t dwell on that. It focuses, rather, on his myriad experiences in life and his reflections on what he learned, including: standing up when believing he’s in the right; fighting hard to achieve success in risky business efforts; the importance of a work ethic; the value of collecting disparate skillsets; and his sense of duty to steward the environment.

Mellon also documents his life’s journey on moving vehicles: a Raleigh bicycle (that he bought for $96 with his savings); a blue 1960 Chevy BelAir; airplanes; a Jet Ranger helicopter; and later jets themselves – including a private Cessna, and a Boeing 727. As the book’s title suggests, Mellon would become a captain for PanAm in its heyday.

Political Awakenings

Mellon had been a lifelong Democrat, strongly influenced by the Kennedys and the Civil Rights movement. Disenchanted by the runaway spending and failed promises of the Democrats, he became a staunch supporter of conservative values and thus Republicans. He was strongly impressed by Ronald Reagan’s libertarian leanings and singularly unimpressed by unions’ ability to bankrupt railroads and airlines through bargaining power that destroyed profitability.

Mellon tells us where this shift in perspective arose: running businesses constantly harried by ubiquitous government regulations and cost impositions at the state, local, and federal levels. In a frank condemnation of the modern nanny state, Mellon makes the analogy between the institution of slavery and modern dependence on government: “But here we are, another two decades down the road, with a record number of citizens dependent upon government largess. They have become slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam.”

Mellon voted for LBJ and Jimmy Carter, and thought Richard Nixon a scoundrel. His conversion did not arise from a silver spoon existence but from a roll-up-your-sleeves practicality. He believed in government as an ally until repeated experiences of graft, incompetence, and waste taught him a hearty dose of libertarian skepticism.

By 2014, Mellon had concluded that America was being torn apart by opportunistic parasites feeding off those who supported the economy and standard of living through their labors and integrity.

In view of the present national division between “woke” Democrats committed to defending illegal immigrants against traditional law enforcement, and Republicans seeking to boost the economy and cut down on government profligacy, Mellon’s characterization of these battle lines in 2014 is prescient: “The entire educational system has become part of the scam: the teachers’ unions perpetuate shoddy performance and foster changes in curriculum that emphasize the benefits of pandering and catering to the various groups that have been defined as victims of Capitalism.”

Mellon’s outspoken pivot to this worldview is neither anticipated by his storytelling nor surprising. Repeatedly, he recounts regulatory buffoonery that kills deals, extinguishes profits, interferes with business dealings, and hurts Americans. His effort to clear some trees at an airport resulted in a landslide of lawsuits; his business dealings were stymied by regulatory hurdles that rewarded and empowered bureaucrats with no demonstrable benefits to the public. (He reserves particular ire for Connecticut Attorney General, now U.S. Senator, Richard Blumenthal.)

The underlying message of PanAm.Captain is that integrity and fortitude are the mainstays of not only a meaningful individual life but also a healthy society. Mellon takes pride in creating jobs, improving business efficiency, preserving the hard work of past generations, and donating land to the government for perpetual trust (8,577 acres across three states).

“My endeavors in life, though not all related, I hope can be judged to have moved the World forward, even if only by a small measure,” he writes. “I have enjoyed overcoming each and every challenge that has been placed in my path, trying in each case to multiply the good resulting from its occurrence.”

And he expresses gratitude for having been born a Mellon, which gave him a head start in life.

“My life, I conclude, has been a fortunate journey,” he acknowledges. “I benefited from a first-class education. I have never been without a comfortable financial cushion, although I have always felt the need to use my own brainpower to augment what I started with…”

This is a story not just about one man’s past, but the choices facing all Americans. Timothy Mellon’s insights are not drawn from the exploits of a privileged trustfunder, but from the determination of an indefatigable entrepreneur. We can all learn from his life story.

[PanAm.Captain was published by Skyhorse Publishing and is available from Amazon in hardcover and for Kindle.]

Comerford, the longtime brand ambassador for the beloved Fix-It and Forget-It series, brings her signature practicality and quiet creativity to a subject that can feel preachy.

The book opens with a warm, disarming acknowledgment: many of us finish a meal only to feel hungry again an hour later. Rather than scolding or prescribing, Comerford simply promises recipes that “help support your body and give you the energy you need to take on your day.” Nutrition information, including protein grams per serving, appears with every recipe, yet the tone remains encouraging rather than disciplinarian. If you need to swap ingredients for dietary reasons, she notes, the counts will change—but the spirit of cooking for yourself should not be abandoned.

The book’s strength begins before the first recipe. Comerford devotes early chapters to appliance literacy: how to choose the right slow-cooker size for your household, the quirks of programmable versus manual models, and a reassuringly thorough “water test” tutorial for Instant Pot novices. These sections read like friendly coaching rather than technical manuals. Comerford anticipates the small frustrations—hot spots, overfilling, sealing-ring cross-contamination between savory and sweet dishes—and offers clear, experience-tested fixes. It is the kind of pragmatic guidance that turns hesitant beginners into confident users.

Once the recipes begin, the payoff is immediate. The appetizers and snacks section alone makes a compelling case for the book’s approach. Colleen Heatwole’s hummus, cooked from dried chickpeas in the Instant Pot and then blended with cottage cheese, hits 12 grams of protein per serving while tasting richer than the usual tahini-only version. Hope Comerford’s own lightened-up spinach artichoke dip reaches 18 grams thanks to Greek yogurt and reduced-fat cheeses, yet retains the creamy, scoopable appeal that makes party food feel indulgent rather than dutiful. Even the sweet-and-hot mixed nuts, slow-cooked with maple syrup and warm spices, deliver 4 grams per quarter-cup handful—an addictive snack that somehow feels virtuous.

The main dishes detailed in the book are designed to keep your daily energy level balanced. Tiny turkey meatballs, formed with quinoa and gently seared before a long low simmer in a balsamic-spiked tomato sauce, emerge tender and flavorful at 6 grams of protein each (40 to 50 meatballs from two pounds of meat means plenty for a crowd or freezer stash). Chicken lettuce wraps, built from browned ground chicken simmered with water chestnuts and aromatic seasonings, clock 15 grams per wrap and come together in the slow cooker with almost no work.

Meatless options and seafood recipes are sprinkled throughout the book, ensuring it feels inclusive rather than prescriptive. Nutrition information—protein grams prominently listed at the bottom of every recipe—remains a constant, helpful companion without ever dominating the page.

Comerford writes as someone who actually cooks for a family: she encourages notes in the margins of her book and suggests preparing components the night before the big meal.

Bonnie Matthews’s photographs deserve separate mention; they are bright, unfussy, and appetite-inducing—bowls of lentil soup, plates of salmon topped with fresh herbs, and layered dips that look ready for Sunday supper or Tuesday lunch. The images reinforce the book’s central promise: these are meals you will want to make and eat.

Perhaps the quiet triumph of Fix-It and Forget-It Protein-Packed Meals lies in its refusal to treat high-protein eating as a temporary project or a punishment. Comerford presents it instead as a sustainable practice that can include creamy dips, tender meatballs, crunchy nuts, and even dessert. By meeting readers where they actually live—busy schedules, limited counter space, the desire for food that comforts as well as fuels—she has produced a volume that feels both timely and timeless. Fans of the series will find the same reassuring voice and reliable results they expect. Newcomers will discover that eating well need not require heroic effort or a second mortgage in specialty ingredients.

In short, Comerford has once again done what the Fix-It and Forget-It brand does best: she has taken a potentially complicated nutritional goal and rendered it not only doable but enjoyable. This is a cookbook to use regularly not to cast off on a bookshelf and admire from afar.

For anyone who has ever stared into an empty refrigerator at 6 p.m. wondering how to feed a household without sacrificing time or protein goals, this book is your friend.

This is not chaos for its own sake; it is the raw, unfiltered sound of a family splintering under the weight of sudden, catastrophic regression.

This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What follows is one of the most honest, courageous, and ultimately life-affirming accounts of parenting a child with profound autism I’ve ever read.

Hjalmarsson, a Swedish-born psychoanalyst, arrived in New York with idealistic dreams of saving the world one foster child at a time. Instead, she found herself in a passionate, complicated marriage to Tony, a driven New York publisher, and the mother of two remarkable daughters.

Early chapters of the book paint a tender, almost idyllic portrait of Lina’s first years: an intensely oral, water-loving, musically attuned child who breast-fed with gusto, invented words like “Broccolella,” and formed a deep, playful bond with her best friend Ellen and baby sister, Elsa.

The writing here is warm and vivid, full of sensory detail—the slap of waves on a Westport beach, the comforting weight of a baby in a sling, the Swedish lilt of mother-daughter conversations.

Then, at three and a half, everything fractures. In the late fall of 2006, Lina suddenly, dramatically, changed: she had her first seizure right after her second batch of vaccinations. She stares through people, drools uncontrollably, loses language, and descends into hyperactivity, meltdowns, and aggression. The regression is swift and terrifying. Hjalmarsson captures the precise moment of maternal dread with devastating clarity: the vacant eyes, the desperate plea to “just swallow.”

What makes this memoir exceptional is that Hjalmarsson refuses to tidy up the horror or turn it into a tidy redemption arc. She lets us feel the full force of her terror, exhaustion, and grief.

The book chronicles the family’s frantic search for answers and healing—neurologists, diets, playrooms, spiritual practitioners, alternative therapies, and the ever-present tension between “cure” and acceptance.

Hjalmarsson is refreshingly candid about her own vulnerabilities: the depression that crept in as her marriage frayed, the guilt over Elsa’s early exposure to traumatic events, the bite marks on her arms that became a daily uniform of love and pain. Yet she never descends into self-pity. Her psychoanalytic training serves her beautifully here; she observes her own mind and heart with the same compassionate rigor she once offered patients.

What elevates Finding Lina above the crowded field of autism memoirs is Hjalmarsson’s luminous prose and emotional intelligence. She writes with a poet’s ear and a therapist’s insight. Descriptions of Lina’s wild laughter, her sudden moments of connection, or the simple joy of swinging under ancient oak trees carry a nearly mystical beauty. The author’s Swedish sensibility—practical, nature-loving, spiritually open—mingles with New York intensity to create a voice that feels both worldly and intimate. Even in the darkest passages, humor seeps through, as when she describes the family’s desperate reliance on “Yankee Doodle” and tight swaddling to calm their newborn powerhouse.

At its core, this is a love story—messy, ferocious, and unconditional. Hjalmarsson’s devotion to both daughters shines on every page. Her relationship with Elsa, the accommodating younger sister, is drawn with particular tenderness, acknowledging the hidden costs borne by “easy” siblings. The portrait of Tony, too, is nuanced: a loving father whose own pain is never minimized.

Hjalmarsson does not offer miracle cures or easy answers, and that is precisely the book’s power. She has come to understand that peace often resides not in fixing what is broken but in learning to inhabit the tornado’s calm eye. Finding Lina is ultimately about presence—the radical act of showing up, moment by moment, for a child who may never be who you expected, and discovering that love, fiercely and imperfectly given, is enough.

This is essential reading for any parent walking the bewildering path of ‘special needs,’ but its wisdom reaches far beyond that. In an era obsessed with optimization and control, Hjalmarsson reminds us of the sacred ground of simply being with our children as they are.

Raw yet refined, heartbreaking yet hopeful, Finding Lina is a beautiful testament to maternal courage and the mysterious, resilient bonds of family. It left me moved, humbled, and strangely optimistic about the human capacity to find light even in the most disorienting darkness.

In the end, Helena Hjalmarsson doesn’t just find Lina—she finds a deeper, braver version of herself. Readers will be grateful they took that journey with her.

[Finding Lina: A Mother’s Journey from Autism to Hope, by Helena Hjalmarsson, M.A., L.C.S.W., L.P. Skyhorse Publishing, 256 pp. Available on Amazon.]

This is not chaos for its own sake; it is the raw, unfiltered sound of a family splintering under the weight of sudden, catastrophic regression.

What follows is one of the most honest, courageous, and ultimately life-affirming accounts of parenting a child with profound autism I’ve ever read.

Hjalmarsson, a Swedish-born psychoanalyst, arrived in New York with idealistic dreams of saving the world one foster child at a time. Instead, she found herself in a passionate, complicated marriage to Tony, a driven New York publisher, and the mother of two remarkable daughters.

Early chapters of the book paint a tender, almost idyllic portrait of Lina’s first years: an intensely oral, water-loving, musically attuned child who breast-fed with gusto, invented words like “Broccolella,” and formed a deep, playful bond with her best friend Ellen and baby sister, Elsa.

The writing here is warm and vivid, full of sensory detail—the slap of waves on a Westport beach, the comforting weight of a baby in a sling, the Swedish lilt of mother-daughter conversations.

Then, at three and a half, everything fractures. In the late fall of 2006, Lina suddenly, dramatically, changed: she had her first seizure right after her second batch of vaccinations. She stares through people, drools uncontrollably, loses language, and descends into hyperactivity, meltdowns, and aggression. The regression is swift and terrifying. Hjalmarsson captures the precise moment of maternal dread with devastating clarity: the vacant eyes, the desperate plea to “just swallow.”

What makes this memoir exceptional is that Hjalmarsson refuses to tidy up the horror or turn it into a tidy redemption arc. She lets us feel the full force of her terror, exhaustion, and grief.

The book chronicles the family’s frantic search for answers and healing—neurologists, diets, playrooms, spiritual practitioners, alternative therapies, and the ever-present tension between “cure” and acceptance.

Hjalmarsson is refreshingly candid about her own vulnerabilities: the depression that crept in as her marriage frayed, the guilt over Elsa’s early exposure to traumatic events, the bite marks on her arms that became a daily uniform of love and pain. Yet she never descends into self-pity. Her psychoanalytic training serves her beautifully here; she observes her own mind and heart with the same compassionate rigor she once offered patients.

What elevates Finding Lina above the crowded field of autism memoirs is Hjalmarsson’s luminous prose and emotional intelligence. She writes with a poet’s ear and a therapist’s insight. Descriptions of Lina’s wild laughter, her sudden moments of connection, or the simple joy of swinging under ancient oak trees carry a nearly mystical beauty. The author’s Swedish sensibility—practical, nature-loving, spiritually open—mingles with New York intensity to create a voice that feels both worldly and intimate. Even in the darkest passages, humor seeps through, as when she describes the family’s desperate reliance on “Yankee Doodle” and tight swaddling to calm their newborn powerhouse.

At its core, this is a love story—messy, ferocious, and unconditional. Hjalmarsson’s devotion to both daughters shines on every page. Her relationship with Elsa, the accommodating younger sister, is drawn with particular tenderness, acknowledging the hidden costs borne by “easy” siblings. The portrait of Tony, too, is nuanced: a loving father whose own pain is never minimized.

Hjalmarsson does not offer miracle cures or easy answers, and that is precisely the book’s power. She has come to understand that peace often resides not in fixing what is broken but in learning to inhabit the tornado’s calm eye. Finding Lina is ultimately about presence—the radical act of showing up, moment by moment, for a child who may never be who you expected, and discovering that love, fiercely and imperfectly given, is enough.

This is essential reading for any parent walking the bewildering path of ‘special needs,’ but its wisdom reaches far beyond that. In an era obsessed with optimization and control, Hjalmarsson reminds us of the sacred ground of simply being with our children as they are.

Raw yet refined, heartbreaking yet hopeful, Finding Lina is a beautiful testament to maternal courage and the mysterious, resilient bonds of family. It left me moved, humbled, and strangely optimistic about the human capacity to find light even in the most disorienting darkness.

In the end, Helena Hjalmarsson doesn’t just find Lina—she finds a deeper, braver version of herself. Readers will be grateful for the journey.

[Finding Lina: A Mother’s Journey from Autism to Hope, by Helena Hjalmarsson, M.A., L.C.S.W., L.P. Skyhorse Publishing, 256 pp. Available on Amazon.]

Klar, a Vermont attorney-turned-farmer and former Democrat (and a current contributor to The MAHA Report), traces his path from debilitating chronic illness through dietary transformation and into the orbit of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement. The result: a first-person account that feels less like campaign literature than a thoughtful dispatch from the front lines of a health-driven realignment still unfolding.

Klar’s story begins not in Washington but in physical collapse. In 1998, at age thirty-four, the fit, high-achieving litigator was suddenly seized by agonizing muscle and joint pain that spread from neck and shoulders to knees and hips. A Lyme diagnosis offered fleeting hope; fibromyalgia followed.

Years of antibiotics, painkillers, and specialist visits yielded little relief. Only after abandoning the pharmaceutical treadmill and adopting a ketogenic approach—emphasizing fats and proteins while sharply reducing carbohydrates—did the fog lift.

The transformation was not instantaneous, but it was profound enough to restore function and, eventually, to reshape his worldview.

“A truly debilitating health crisis is a sort of human metamorphosis,” he writes. That metamorphosis supplies the book’s moral center: personal healing through real food became the template for a larger political awakening.

What makes Klar’s new book distinctive is how seamlessly the personal and political intertwine. Disillusioned first by Bill Clinton’s perjury, then by Barack Obama’s Wall Street rescue and embrace of Monsanto-aligned policies (including the preemption of Vermont’s GMO-labeling efforts), and finally by Bernie Sanders’s accommodation to the Democratic machine in 2016, Klar drifted from the party of his upbringing.

In 2020, Klar ran as a Republican for Vermont governor on a platform centered on bolstering small farms and rural economies. When Kennedy began speaking about chronic disease, corporate capture of regulatory agencies, and the degradation of the American food supply, Klar recognized his own hard-won lessons being articulated on a national stage.

The book’s most compelling sections recount Klar’s deepening involvement: helping secure Kennedy ballot access in Vermont, writing favorably in conservative outlets, and ultimately joining the MAHA transition team after the August 2024 alliance with Donald Trump.

Klar portrays Kennedy not as a fringe ideologue but as a lawyerly, fact-driven figure whose critique of industrial food and pharmaceutical influence transcends traditional left-right categories. The movement’s early emphasis on ultra-processed foods, soil health, small-farm viability, and rural health infrastructure receives sustained attention in the book; vaccines and Tylenol controversies, while acknowledged, are presented as secondary to the unifying power of food policy.

Klar is candid about MAHA’s challenges—its difficulty in definition, the media’s tendency to caricature it, and the persistent pull of partisan gravity. Yet he remains optimistic precisely because the core issues (regulatory capture by Big Ag, the decline of domestic food production, the epidemic of diet-related illness), cut across demographic and ideological lines.

“If Americans cannot come together to fortify our nation against corporate regulatory capture,” he writes, “then all other priorities are irrelevant.” That conviction gives the book its quiet urgency and distinguishes it from more strident movement literature.

Stylistically, Welcome to the Revolution benefits from Klar’s background as both litigator and farmer. The prose is clear, occasionally lyrical, and free of jargon; courtroom-honed precision meets agrarian directness. The personal sections are especially vivid—the terror of the fibromyalgia support group, the rocking chair that allowed him to keep moving through pain, the moment a doctor’s simple dietary prescription upended years of pharmaceutical dependence. These passages ground the larger political argument in lived consequence.

If the book has a limitation, it is the partiality of an insider account. Yet that immediacy is also its strength. Klar is not a lifelong Kennedy acolyte or Trump loyalist but a convert whose skepticism was earned through pain and whose hope is tempered by experience. In an age of performative outrage, such authenticity carries weight.

Welcome to the Revolution will resonate most with readers already sympathetic to MAHA’s diagnosis of America’s food and health crisis. But it deserves a wider audience among anyone seeking to understand how personal suffering can catalyze political realignment—and why food, of all things, might yet prove the issue capable of bridging America’s bitterest divides

Klar’s journey from sick Democrat to MAHA participant offers neither easy answers nor partisan comfort food. It offers something more valuable: a credible, humane case that healing the body and healing the body politic may, in fact, be the same urgent project.

Despite the fact that the legacy media barely covered it, the book quietly sold over one million copies and sat on The New York Times’ bestseller list for 20 weeks.

What drew readers around the world to the book is precisely what repelled legacy media from it – the book dared to ask questions of the institutions and institutional figures, mainly Dr. Anthony Fauci (a physician and former Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the U.S.), that the corporate media refused to ask.

For decades, Dr. Fauci was the unflappable face of expertise—calm, avuncular, seemingly above politics. Kennedy, who prior to his position as HHS Secretary was an attorney and environmental activist, reframes Fauci not as a humble civil servant but as the central architect of a half-century of regulatory capture, scientific suppression, and profit-driven policy.

Part legal brief, part historical autopsy, and part cri de coeur for evidence-based medicine and open debate, the book demands to be read.

What emerges is a portrait of a technocrat who, in Kennedy’s telling, consistently placed pharmaceutical profits and institutional power above public health—long before Covid-thrust Fauci into every American living room.

The book opens with the pandemic that defined our era. Kennedy meticulously catalogs the early decisions: the dismissal of repurposed drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, the promotion of remdesivir, the relentless focus on novel vaccines, and the sweeping lockdowns whose collateral damage—economic ruin, educational setbacks, mental health crises, and excess deaths from deferred care—would prove, in his view, more devastating than the virus itself for many populations.

In The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy contrasts the U.S. death rate with nations that pursued different strategies, marshaling data that will discomfort anyone who accepted the dominant narrative without question.

Yet the pandemic is merely one slice of the story Kennedy tells. He traces Fauci’s career arc from the AIDS era onward, arguing that the same patterns—suppression of dissenting scientists, elevation of expensive patented treatments over cheaper alternatives, ethical lapses in clinical trials (including disturbing accounts of experiments on vulnerable children), and deep financial entanglements with industry—repeat with incriminating regularity.

The HIV chapter is particularly harrowing, detailing what Kennedy calls a “template” for pharma profiteering: the rush to AZT despite its toxicity, the sidelining of alternative hypotheses, and the vilification of heretics. Kennedy is especially tough on the regulatory agencies (NIAID, CDC, FDA) that, his research suggests, have been hollowed out by the very industry they are meant to oversee.

What makes the book compelling is not just its litany of allegations but its grounding in regulatory capture—the “Pharmanation” Kennedy describes with cold precision. Fauci’s agency receives massive funding from industry user fees; NIH and its scientists earn royalties on products they help develop; career incentives align with blockbuster drugs rather than root-cause public health solutions. The chronic disease epidemic exploding under Fauci’s watch—autism, allergies, autoimmune disorders—receives sustained attention as a damning indictment of government priorities. While mainstream voices attribute these trends to better diagnosis or genetics, Kennedy demands environmental investigation and accountability that, he argues, never happened

Kennedy humanizes the stakes. The book’s dedication honors the “Heroic Healers Honor Roll”—doctors and scientists who challenged orthodoxy at great personal cost. Endorsements from figures as varied as Tucker Carlson, Tony Robbins, Alan Dershowitz, and Robert Malone give the project intellectual breadth, even as they underscore its heterodox appeal.

The writing is clear, blending legal rigor with moral passion. At times the accumulation of detail can feel overwhelming—but it needs to feel that way. This is a book meant to overwhelm (and alarm) the comforting simplicities peddled by legacy “news” and official pronouncements.

Some critics, those precious few who have read the book, have dismissed The Real Anthony Fauci as conspiracy-minded or partisan. That reflex misses the deeper service Kennedy performs.

In an era of elevated distrust of institutions, Kennedy’s work is a model of investigative journalism infused by moral outrage and palpable passion focused on ferreting out the truth and showing it to the world.

Science is not a priesthood; it is a method. When fear, money, and power distort that method—when debate is replaced by decrees, and dissent by deplatforming—democracy itself erodes. Kennedy shows how easily “public health” can become a vehicle for authoritarian impulses and concentrated wealth.

The upward wealth transfer during lockdowns, the censorship apparatus, the shattered small businesses and families: these are not side effects in Kennedy’s narrative but features of a system optimized for control and profiteering.

Whether one accepts every claim in the book or not, the book performs a vital civic function: it restores agency to citizens long conditioned to trust the ‘experts.’ It invites readers to examine primary sources, question what they’re being told to believe, and reclaim the spirit of skepticism.

In that sense, The Real Anthony Fauci is less about one man than about the fragility of democracy when its guardrails—independent science, free speech, accountability—are captured by the multinationals who own the media most Americans, and millions of people around the world, consume.

At nearly 500 pages plus endnotes, this is not light reading. But it is necessary reading — reading that will radically challenge the comfortable narratives we’ve all heard many too many times.

Finally, the book insists that public health serve people, not power. In an era desperate for accountability, The Real Anthony Fauci is an unflinching act of intellectual resistance in which ‘America’s Doctor’ meets his most formidable adversary: the documented record.

“Sean Spicer reveals how President Trump returned to office with a mission to drive permanent healthcare progress. Never before has a president and his team fought harder to make it cheaper and easier to be healthy in America.” —Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator, CMS

Regnery, a division of Skyhorse Publishing, this week published a new book by Sean Spicer, best known as President Donald Trump’s first press secretary.

The book, Trump 2.0: The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America, explains a broad range of the president’s current policies, including securing the borders; trade & and tariffs; NATO; defense and intelligence; education; Doge; the Charlie Kirk assassination; and how to take back the media from the clutches of the progressive left.

For readers of The MAHA Report, the book’s Chapter 7, “The MAHA Policy Blueprint,” will be of particular interest. Spicer shrewdly explains how, with the help of Big Pharma, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., once the darling of the the left, became a prime target of the Big Pharma-funded left, right, and center.

Spicer presents MAHA as a revolutionary response to America’s chronic health crisis, blaming Big Pharma and Big Food for prioritizing profits over public well-being. He argues these industries lobby heavily to maintain harmful practices (e.g., unsafe additives, high drug prices), leading to obesity (41.6 percent of adults), chronic diseases (60-percent of Americans), and poor child health outcomes. Spicer sees Kennedy’s HHS role as central, framing him as disrupting the Big Pharma “cartel” to restore health through science and accountability.

More analysis than memoir, Spicer’s Trump 2.0 diligently explains the harmful influence of Big Pharma — spent $391M lobbying in 2024 (most of any sector); DTC ads mislead consumers, inflating prices (up to 4x higher than peers); examples like Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin fueled opioid deaths.

Similarly, Spicer lambasts Big Food’s role in harming our well-being — by pushing ultra-processed foods with dyes/additives (e.g., Red 40). He also recounts how the GRAS loophole allows untested ingredients that are part of why America has a 41% obesity rate, rising child allergies, and other chronic conditions.

Spicer praises Secretary Kennedy’s solutions and ‘wins’ through late 2025, including:

• Food Reforms: Phasing out petroleum dyes by 2026; companies (e.g., Nestlé, Hershey, General Mills) committing to remove dyes/additives; Nebraska soda ban in food stamps.

• Pharma Reforms: FDA crackdown on DTC ads; off-label drugs/Right to Try promoted; COVID vaccines removed from child/pregnant recommendations.

• Broader Agenda: MAHA Commission for research (e.g., chronic disease, vaccines); rural health investments; private sector shifts (e.g., Steak ‘n Shake to beef tallow).

Further, Spicer highlights major wins under Kennedy and Trump that he believes have lasting power:

• 35% of food industry pledged dye removal (e.g., PepsiCo, Tyson).

• Polls: Bipartisan support (53% conservatives, 35% very liberals positive on MAHA).

• Ties to MAGA: Aligns with border security (fentanyl), economy (tariffs on imports).

Finally, Spicer calls MAHA Trump’s "Manhattan Project" for health, led by Kennedy (HHS), Marty Makary (FDA), Mehmet Oz (Medicare) and Jay Bhattacharya (NIH).

With such a dream team, Spicer predicts enduring change [“The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America,” as the book’s subtitle reads], for the public, he says, is coming to see the benefits of the accumulating MAHA ‘wins’ — lower obesity, better child health, and much more.

With Trump 2.0 , Spicer establishes himself as a savvy policy thinker of the highest order.

Written by Liana Werner-Gray and Cherie Calbom, two trusted voices in holistic health, the book cuts through decades of confusion and marketing hype to deliver clarity on one of the most overlooked culprits in modern chronic disease: industrial seed oils.

The book publishes April 30 from MAHA Books, a division of Skyhorse Publishing.

From the very first pages, the authors make a compelling case that what we’ve long been told is “heart-healthy” (canola, soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, cottonseed, and rice bran oils—the so-called “Hateful Eight”) may be silently undermining our health.

Backed by historical context, biochemical explanations, and a growing body of research, Werner-Gray and Calbom argue that these highly processed, omega-6-rich oils promote oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and metabolic dysfunction. The authors link such oils to rising rates of anxiety, depression, insulin resistance, obesity, heart disease, cognitive decline, and even certain cancers—not as fear-mongering, but as a call to informed action.

What makes this book especially powerful is its balanced tone. It doesn’t just criticize; it educates.

Chapter 1 dives into the “Seed Oil Scandal,” tracing how the eight oils rose to prominence – not through health science, but through wartime economics, aggressive marketing (think Procter & Gamble’s Crisco), and flawed studies like Ancel Keys’ lipid hypothesis. The authors highlight how subsidies, conflicts of interest (including early American Heart Association funding), and the demonization of traditional fats like butter, tallow, and coconut oil, created a perfect storm.

The authors also address the spiritual dimension—how disconnecting food from its natural, whole-food roots turns it into a commodity rather than a gift.

Chapter 2 explores the mechanisms by which seed oils may contribute to brain and body dysfunction. The brain is nearly 60% fat. The authors explain how excess linoleic acid from seed oils can crowd out protective omega-3s, promote neuroinflammation, damage mitochondria, disrupt neurotransmitters, and even compromise the blood-brain barrier. They connect these processes to anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s risk, and more, while contrasting modern Western diets (often 15:1 or worse omega-6 to omega-3 ratios) with ancestral patterns. Real-world examples, such as the low dementia rates among the Tsimané people, reinforce the message: traditional, minimally processed fats align better with human biology.

The book doesn’t stop at problems—it offers clear, practical solutions. Chapter 3 serves as an excellent “fats and oils handbook,” comparing saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats, explaining smoke points, oxidation risks, and why quality matters. It debunks myths around cholesterol and saturated fat while celebrating stable, nourishing options like extra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, and beef tallow. Individual fat tolerance is respected, with thoughtful disclaimers acknowledging bio-individuality.

Chapter 4 focuses on cooking, offering up over 50 delicious, blood-sugar-friendly, anti-inflammatory recipes featuring nature’s healthiest fats. From Liana’s OG 3-Hour Chicken Bone Broth Noodle Soup and Guacamole Greens Chicken Salad to Cherie’s classics like Cream of Carrot Soup and old-fashioned beef tallow cornbread, the recipes are approachable, flavorful, and nutrient-dense. They prove healthy eating doesn’t mean deprivation—meals can be indulgent and supportive of liver, mitochondria, hormones, and nervous system health. Highlights include golden anti-inflammatory rice bowls, pumpkin pancakes, and even treats like mini cashew cheesecakes and feather-light coconut macaroons.

Later in the book, the authors provide a valuable shopping guide: how to choose cold-pressed or expeller-pressed oils, read labels, avoid hidden seed oils in restaurants and packaged foods, and source high-quality animal fats. Resources like Seed Oil Scout (an app) and the Templeton List make real-world application easier than ever.

The Truth About Seed Oils has a hopeful, solution-oriented spirit. It’s not about fear—it’s about empowerment. Werner-Gray and Calbom remind us that simple swaps (ditching industrial oils for real, traditional fats) can reduce inflammation, stabilize energy and mood, support metabolic health, and potentially lower chronic disease risk.

This is a must-read for anyone serious about wellness, whether you’re dealing with inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, or simply want to eat more intentionally. It’s accessible for beginners yet substantive enough for those already familiar with ancestral or functional nutrition. The writing is warm, clear, and engaging, blending science, history, personal stories, and practical advice.

If you’ve ever felt confused by conflicting advice about fats—or suspected that the “vegetable oil” in your pantry might not be as benign as advertised—The Truth About Seed Oils will feel like a breath of fresh air. It challenges decades of dogma without dogma of its own, always circling back to biology, tradition, and listening to your body.

The Truth About Seed Oils, due out from Skyhorse on April 28, 2026, is currently available for pre-order. A portion of the proceeds from this and all subsequent books released by the Skyhorse MAHA Books imprint will be used to support initiatives by MAHA Action, tying the book to the broader movement for better public health policy.

Related Reading:

Moreover, Spicer gives us something more consequential than an insider’s memoir. He presents the president’s second term not as a sequel to the first but as a well planned historical pivot, arguing that the new Trump administration is locking in structural change designed to outlast any single presidency.

The foreword, written by President Trump, sets the book’s authoritative tone. Trump writes, “In everything we do, we are fighting for the law-abiding, hardworking people of our country. This is the essence of ‘Trump 2.0,’ and there are few people who understand it better than my friend and former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Sean has been with us since the beginning. He played a central role in helping us defeat Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016—and he has been a warrior for our cause ever since.

Continues President Trump, “If you want to understand the people, the policies, and the process of my second term in office, read this book.”

Early in his book, Spicer makes the point that, unlike every modern two-term White House, the second Trump administration benefited from four full years of deliberate and concentrated reflection outside of the White House. While Democrats celebrated what they hoped was the MAGA movement’s demise, Trump loyalists at the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 were quietly drafting policies and processes. The plan: when Trump returned to the White House the new administration could hit the ground running. .

The result, Spicer writes with evident pride, is an administration that arrived on January 20, 2025, ready to execute.

Spicer’s prose moves with the confidence of a seasoned communicator who has spent years distilling complex issues for the press and the public. Chapters on border security, trade fairness, NATO burden-sharing, smarter defense, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) include a wealth of data presented in an easy-to-understand format.

Spicer also goes after Biden-era policies that didn’t work – open borders, stagnant growth, eroded deterrence—comparing them with early triumphs during Trump 2.0.

According to Spicer, under Trump 2.0 border crossings have decreased from thousands per day to zero for months – and there has been record investment flooding into the country.

What emerges is less partisan triumphalism than lucid case study of how strategic patience and personnel discipline can convert campaign promises into governing reality.

For advocates of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, Chapter 7—“The MAHA Policy Blueprint”—will feel like the book’s quiet masterstroke.

Spicer devotes sustained, respectful attention to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role as Secretary of Health and Human Services, framing MAHA not as a niche cause but as a foundational pillar of national renewal. He articulates the movement’s ambitions with clarity: to confront America’s chronic-disease epidemic by challenging the iron grip of Big Food and Big Pharma, demanding transparency on vaccines and ultra-processed foods, and shifting federal policy toward prevention, wellness, and personal freedom rather than on what Kennedy ridicules as “sick care.”

MAHA advocates will particularly appreciate how Spicer weaves the movement’s priorities into the broader America First vision, demonstrating that restoring physical and mental health is inseparable from restoring economic vitality, cultural confidence, and sovereign strength.

In an era when public health has too often been politicized or corporatized, Spicer treats MAHA with the seriousness it deserves—as a bold, evidence-driven corrective that belongs at the center of conservative governance.

Throughout his book, Spicer maintains a tone of measured optimism. He candidly acknowledges the first term’s frustrations—internal resistance, relentless investigations, bureaucratic inertia—while celebrating the second term’s structural advantages: pre-vetted loyalists, battle-tested senior staff, and a four-year policy incubation that allowed genuine depth.

The afterword from Vice President JD Vance and Spencer’s concluding reflections reinforce the central thesis: Trump 2.0 is built to endure.

Trump 2.0 is, in the end, a hopeful book written by a master communicator who still believes ideas matter. Spicer makes a persuasive case that the changes underway—on borders, trade, education, government efficiency, and public health—are not fleeting corrections but the foundation of a new political era.

Whether one embraces that vision or approaches it with skepticism, the book offers a lucid, insider’s take into how the second Trump administration is remaking America.

For anyone who has followed Spicer’s journey from the White House briefing room to podcast host and author, this volume marks his most interesting work to date. It is essential reading for those who want to understand the ambitions, early achievements, and long-term aspirations of the second Trump presidency.

Spicer’s measured conviction that America’s best days lie ahead of us feels both ambitious and refreshing.

Trump 2.0: The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America is due out on April 28, 2026 from Regnery but is available now for pre-order.

“Even as a trained lung surgeon, I find cases like young Shira Boehler’s shocking. Her riveting story should be grasped by all.” —Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator, CMS

Shira Boehler’s new book, One Scan Saved My Life: How One Woman’s Story Will Change How We Detect Lung Cancer (which publishes today, April 28), is not merely a survivor’s memoir; it is a clarion call, urgent and unflinching, that dismantles the stubborn myths surrounding the deadliest cancer in America. Lung cancer kills nearly 125,000 people annually—more than breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers combined—yet it remains mired in stigma, outdated guidelines, and dangerously low screening rates.

Boehler was doing everything right. A devoted mother of four, an avid runner who logged six hilly miles the morning her world tilted, a nonsmoker who ate well and stayed active—she embodied the kind of disciplined wellness that should, by all conventional wisdom, keep deadly diseases at bay.

Yet on a Monday in September 2025, she sat in an exam room hearing the words no one expects or wants to hear at forty-three — or any age: ‘You have lung cancer.’

Boehler’s story, told with candor, wit, and the precision of someone who has spent her career in health-care tech and finance, exposes how a disease long dismissed as a “smoker’s problem” is quietly claiming a new demographic: younger women, many of whom have never touched a cigarette.

The book’s premise is simple and unsettling. During a preventive full-body MRI encouraged by her husband (over her objections), a “non-urgent” spot appeared in Boehler’s right lung. Skeptical, she followed up with a low-dose CT scan recommended by her radiologist friend and her pulmonologist father. What followed was a swift diagnosis of stage I adenocarcinoma—an aggressive tumor caught before it could metastasize. Surgery removed it cleanly. Margins clear, lymph nodes negative.

Boehler walked away not just alive, but with a mission.

What makes Boehler’s book so compelling is its refusal to settle for personal triumph. Boehler weaves her journey—MRIs, Saturday-night calls from her radiologist, the surreal laughter of her children upon hearing the news, the agony of a chest tube, the slow reclaiming of her body—with clear-eyed explorations of the science, policy, and human cost of lung cancer. She dismantles the smoker’s-disease trope with data and lived experience: 25 percent of cases occur in never-smokers. Rates are rising among women under fifty. Asian American never-smoking women face disproportionately high risk. Family history, secondhand smoke, and emerging genetic factors like EGFR mutations, all play roles that current guidelines.

The foreword by Anne and Janet Wojcicki adds poignant weight. Their sister Susan died of stage IV lung cancer at fifty-four, a never-smoker whose meticulous screenings for breast and colorectal cancers never extended to her lungs. The contrast is heartbreaking and instructive: early detection turned Boehler’s story into one of survival and advocacy; late detection turned Susan’s into a devastating loss.

Boehler does not shy from the complexities. She acknowledges the modest radiation risk of low-dose CTs, the challenge of incidental findings, and the real barriers—access, cost, awareness, and physician hesitation—that keep screening uptake shockingly low even among those who qualify (often just 2 to 6 percent in eligible high-risk groups).

In her book, Boehler interviews survivors, surgeons, researchers, and advocates, including voices from the White Ribbon Project, and dives into innovations on the horizon: AI-assisted radiology, radiomics, liquid biopsies, multi-cancer detection tests, and precision approaches targeting biomarkers. Yet she returns, again and again, to the simplest, most evidence-based intervention: expanding access to scans that can find cancer before symptoms appear, when surgery alone can be curative.

Written in crisp, conversational prose that never sacrifices depth for readability, the book balances memoir with manifesto. Chapters on the respiratory system, staging, nonsurgical treatments, and the barriers to broader screening are informative without overwhelming. Personal details—the Little Mermaid soundtrack sung inside the MRI tube, the Yom Kippur break-fast turned impromptu support gathering, the nerve pain and full-body rash of recovery—keep the narrative grounded in one woman’s vivid, relatable humanity.

Critics might note that Boehler’s privileged position—access to out-of-pocket scans, a strong support network, top-tier care at Vanderbilt—makes her outcome aspirational rather than universal. She addresses this head-on, arguing that no one should need wealth or insider knowledge to receive lifesaving screening. Her dedication to policy change, including calls for revised USPSTF guidelines that better account for never-smokers, family history, sex differences, and younger patients, feels both pragmatic and morally astute.

In an era when cynicism about health-care reform runs deep, One Scan Saved My Life stands as a hopeful, data-driven argument that we already have the tools capable of transforming lung cancer from a near-certain killer into a manageable condition for far more people. Boehler’s voice—warm, determined, occasionally humorous—never preaches; it persuades. She reminds us that the most powerful advocacy often begins with one person refusing to accept the status quo.

This is essential reading for patients, families, physicians, and policymakers alike. It will make you question why we screen so aggressively for some cancers while leaving others to chance. More importantly, it may save lives—perhaps even your own or someone you love—by prompting a single, simple question: Have I had that scan?

One scan saved Shira Boehler’s life. With courage and clarity, her book argues that a single scan can save many more lives.

The book does far more than catalog threats to speech and press freedoms: It reframes them as symptoms of a deeper cultural erosion that’s endangering America, the democratic experiment, as it barrels toward its 250th anniversary.

Brotman, the first Digital Media Laureate at The Media Institute, is one of our country’s leading experts on today’s free speech landscape. He’s taught at Harvard, Tufts and elsewhere, and has contributed to landmark Supreme Court cases. In Free Expression Under Fire he translates complex legal doctrine into prose that is at once accessible and profound.

But for Brotman, legal victories alone are insufficient: Sustaining liberty requires rebuilding a durable culture of free expression—one that prizes open debate, dissent, and rigorous reporting. In an era of cancel culture, this is perhaps the book’s most timely contribution, with chapters on navigating free speech on college campuses, on the Internet, and in legacy and new forms of journalism.

What elevates Brotman’s analysis is his consistent even-handedness. He draws examples from across the ideological spectrum: conservative speakers shouted down on progressive campuses; progressive journalists facing retaliatory investigations; and tech platforms caught in the crossfire of competing demands for both more and less moderation.

Brotman also connects historical lessons to present challenges. He revisits the Pentagon Papers, not as dusty history but as a living precedent that illuminates today’s battles over classified information leaks. He writes about campus speech policies that often backfire spectacularly, breeding resentment and intellectual conformity rather than genuine inclusion. Social media giants, meanwhile, navigate an impossible thicket of legal ambiguity, public pressure, and commercial incentives—decisions that Brotman dissects with the clarity of someone who has been in the ring, who has advised on these very dilemmas.

Brotman acknowledges that power and violence have long overshadowed speech, but he refuses to surrender to cynicism, instead recruiting “free expression warriors” across political divides to defend the things that make self-government possible. And Brotman notes: Defending speech for those we disagree with is not weakness but the ultimate test of democratic maturity.

Critics may quibble that Brotman underplays certain contemporary flashpoints or that his optimism about cultural renewal feels aspirational at a time of deepening polarization. Yet such objections miss the book’s larger purpose. It is not a policy blueprint for any single faction but a mirror held up to the nation, urging reflection at a pivotal historical moment. By refusing to score cheap partisan points, Brotman models the very ethos he seeks to restore: rigorous argument pursued in good faith.

Free Expression Under Fire should be read by every college student facing speech codes and social pressures, every journalist confronting institutional or governmental scrutiny, every policymaker tempted to regulate platforms “for the greater good,” and every citizen—left, right, or center—who senses that something vital in our public square is slipping away.

The book belongs in classrooms, newsrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms alike. In a fractured republic, Free Expression Under Fire does more than warn: it ignites a unifying call to arms. Protect the words that sustain our democracy, or watch the republic that depends on them fade into silence.

Free Expression Under Fire: Defending Free Speech and Free Press Across the Political Spectrum, by Stuart N. Brotman with an introduction by Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, is available in paperback and as an audiobook.

What began as a desperate attempt to save his 83-year-old mother-in-law from terminal metastatic breast cancer has evolved into a meticulously researched exposé that challenges everything we think we know about cancer treatment—and reveals what may be one of the most effective therapies hiding in plain sight.

The premise sounds almost absurd: an over-the-counter veterinary deworming medicine called fenbendazole, commonly used to treat parasites in dogs and farm animals, is a remarkably effective cancer treatment. Yet Supple, a neuroscientist by training, who earned his doctorate from Dartmouth, builds his case with the methodical precision of both a researcher and someone who has witnessed the seemingly impossible.

Supple’s mother-in-law, given weeks to live with cancer that had spread throughout her body, experienced complete remission after taking fenbendazole mixed into her morning yogurt. She remains cancer-free, four years later.

What makes Cancer Is a Parasite extraordinary is not just its central claim, but also the depth of evidence Supple marshals to support it. Drawing on decades of peer-reviewed research from institutions like Johns Hopkins and MD Anderson Cancer Center, he demonstrates that fenbendazole’s cancer-fighting properties have been documented in scientific literature for years, yet somehow remained outside mainstream oncology. The drug works through multiple mechanisms simultaneously—disrupting cancer cells’ internal structure, starving them of glucose, cutting off their blood supply, and reactivating the body’s own tumor-suppression systems—while leaving healthy cells entirely unharmed.

Perhaps most disturbing is Supple’s revelation that this knowledge isn’t new. Through painstaking detective work, he uncovers evidence that a fenbendazole-based cancer drug was actually discovered and named “oncodazole” in 1976, only to be mysteriously suppressed and have its name changed to obscure its cancer-fighting purpose.

The implications are staggering: if accurate, this represents a cover-up that may have cost millions of lives over the past five decades.

The book’s most compelling section presents over twenty detailed case reports of individuals who, after exhausting conventional treatments, took matters into their own hands and achieved remarkable recoveries using fenbendazole. These aren’t vague testimonials but detailed accounts of people with advanced brain tumors, aggressive breast cancers, and metastatic melanomas who achieved complete remission—many of whom had been sent home to die after standard treatments failed. The consistency of these outcomes across diverse cancer types is striking.

Supple’s analysis extends beyond individual cases to reveal global patterns that are difficult to dismiss. He demonstrates that countries implementing mass deworming programs, using drugs similar to fenbendazole, have cancer rates approximately half those of wealthy nations that don’t use such programs. The United States, with its advanced healthcare system and high costs, has triple the incidence of cancer found in countries such as India and Mexico – countries that routinely deworm their populations as part of public health policy.

The author’s background as a neuroscientist lends credibility to his ability to synthesize complex biochemical research, while his personal stake in the outcome—having lost both parents to cancer—infuses the work with passion and urgency. His writing is clear and accessible, making sophisticated scientific concepts understandable to general readers without dumbing down the material.

But the book’s greatest strength lies in its synthesis of existing scientific evidence into a coherent, actionable framework. Supple doesn’t ask readers to take his word for anything; instead, he meticulously cites hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and provides clear reasoning for every conclusion. The biological mechanisms he describes are well-established in scientific literature. Supple’s contribution is connecting the dots between parasitology and oncology in a way that reveals previously hidden patterns.

The implications are profound.

If fenbendazole proves as effective as Supple’s evidence suggests, it could transform cancer from a terrifying death sentence into a manageable condition—safely, inexpensively, and without the devastating side effects of current treatments. The drug costs pennies per dose and is available over-the-counter at farm supply stores, potentially democratizing cancer treatment in a way that pharmaceutical patents never could – or would.

Whether Supple’s most provocative claims about suppressed knowledge prove accurate or not, his central message is impossible to ignore—we may already have a safe, effective cancer treatment that deserves immediate, serious investigation by the medical establishment.

For the millions of people facing a cancer diagnosis, this book offers something precious and increasingly rare in oncology: hope backed by solid science. It deserves to be read by patients, caregivers, and physicians alike.

Cancer Is a Parasite is that rarest of books: one that could fundamentally alter how we approach one of humanity’s greatest scourges.

Please note: A portion of the proceeds from MAHA Books helps fund the work of MAHA Action, Inc.

Co-authored by two trusted voices in holistic health—Liana Werner-Gray, a functional nutritionist and cancer survivor, and Cherie Calbom (a renowned “Juice Lady”), a clinical nutritionist with decades of experience—this book cuts through decades of confusion and marketing hype to deliver clarity on one of the most overlooked culprits in modern chronic disease: industrial seed oils.

From the very first pages, the authors make a compelling case that what we’ve long been told is “heart-healthy” (canola, soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, cottonseed, and rice bran oils—the so-called “Hateful Eight”) may be silently undermining our health.

Backed by historical context, biochemical explanations, and a growing body of research, Werner-Gray and Calbom argue that these highly processed, omega-6-rich oils promote oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and metabolic dysfunction. The authors link such oils to rising rates of anxiety, depression, insulin resistance, obesity, heart disease, cognitive decline, and even certain cancers—not as fear-mongering, but as a call to informed action.

What makes this book especially powerful is its balanced tone. It doesn’t just criticize; it educates.

Chapter 1 dives into the “Seed Oil Scandal,” tracing how the eight oils rose to prominence – not through health science, but through wartime economics, aggressive marketing (think Procter & Gamble’s Crisco), and flawed studies like Ancel Keys’ lipid hypothesis. The authors highlight how subsidies, conflicts of interest (including early American Heart Association funding), and the demonization of traditional fats like butter, tallow, and coconut oil, created a perfect storm.

The authors also address the spiritual dimension—how disconnecting food from its natural, whole-food roots turns it into a commodity rather than a gift.

Chapter 2 explores the mechanisms by which seed oils may contribute to brain and body dysfunction. The brain is nearly 60% fat. The authors explain how excess linoleic acid from seed oils can crowd out protective omega-3s, promote neuroinflammation, damage mitochondria, disrupt neurotransmitters, and even compromise the blood-brain barrier. They connect these processes to anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s risk, and more, while contrasting modern Western diets (often 15:1 or worse omega-6 to omega-3 ratios) with ancestral patterns. Real-world examples, such as the low dementia rates among the Tsimané people, reinforce the message: traditional, minimally processed fats align better with human biology.

The book doesn’t stop at problems—it offers clear, practical solutions. Chapter 3 serves as an excellent “fats and oils handbook,” comparing saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats, explaining smoke points, oxidation risks, and why quality matters. It debunks myths around cholesterol and saturated fat while celebrating stable, nourishing options like extra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, and beef tallow. Individual fat tolerance is respected, with thoughtful disclaimers acknowledging bio-individuality.

Chapter 4 focuses on cooking, offering up over 50 delicious, blood-sugar-friendly, anti-inflammatory recipes featuring nature’s healthiest fats. From Liana’s OG 3-Hour Chicken Bone Broth Noodle Soup and Guacamole Greens Chicken Salad to Cherie’s classics like Cream of Carrot Soup and old-fashioned beef tallow cornbread, the recipes are approachable, flavorful, and nutrient-dense. They prove healthy eating doesn’t mean deprivation—meals can be indulgent and supportive of liver, mitochondria, hormones, and nervous system health. Highlights include golden anti-inflammatory rice bowls, pumpkin pancakes, and even treats like mini cashew cheesecakes and feather-light coconut macaroons.

Later in the book, the authors provide a valuable shopping guide: how to choose cold-pressed or expeller-pressed oils, read labels, avoid hidden seed oils in restaurants and packaged foods, and source high-quality animal fats. Resources like Seed Oil Scout (an app) and the Templeton List make real-world application easier than ever.

The Truth About Seed Oils has a hopeful, solution-oriented spirit. It’s not about fear—it’s about empowerment. Werner-Gray and Calbom remind us that simple swaps (ditching industrial oils for real, traditional fats) can reduce inflammation, stabilize energy and mood, support metabolic health, and potentially lower chronic disease risk.

This is a must-read for anyone serious about wellness, whether you’re dealing with inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, or simply want to eat more intentionally. It’s accessible for beginners yet substantive enough for those already familiar with ancestral or functional nutrition. The writing is warm, clear, and engaging, blending science, history, personal stories, and practical advice.

If you’ve ever felt confused by conflicting advice about fats—or suspected that the “vegetable oil” in your pantry might not be as benign as advertised—The Truth About Seed Oils will feel like a breath of fresh air. It challenges decades of dogma without dogma of its own, always circling back to biology, tradition, and listening to your body.

The Truth About Seed Oils, due out from Skyhorse on April 28, 2026, is currently available for pre-order. A portion of the proceeds from this and all subsequent books released by the Skyhorse MAHA Books imprint will be used to support initiatives by MAHA Action, tying the book to the broader movement for better public health policy.

Additional Reading:

Moreover, Spicer gives us something more consequential than an insider’s memoir. He presents the president’s second term not as a sequel to the first but as a well planned historical pivot, arguing that the new Trump administration is locking in structural change designed to outlast any single presidency.

The foreword, written by President Trump, sets the book’s authoritative tone. Trump writes, “In everything we do, we are fighting for the law-abiding, hardworking people of our country. This is the essence of ‘Trump 2.0,’ and there are few people who understand it better than my friend and former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Sean has been with us since the beginning. He played a central role in helping us defeat Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016—and he has been a warrior for our cause ever since.

Continues President Trump, “If you want to understand the people, the policies, and the process of my second term in office, read this book.”

Early in his book, Spicer makes the point that, unlike every modern two-term White House, the second Trump administration benefited from four full years of deliberate and concentrated reflection outside of the White House. While Democrats celebrated what they hoped was the MAGA movement’s demise, Trump loyalists at the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 were quietly drafting policies and processes. The plan: when Trump returned to the White House the new administration could hit the ground running. .

The result, Spicer writes with evident pride, is an administration that arrived on January 20, 2025, ready to execute.

Spicer’s prose moves with the confidence of a seasoned communicator who has spent years distilling complex issues for the press and the public. Chapters on border security, trade fairness, NATO burden-sharing, smarter defense, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) include a wealth of data presented in an easy-to-understand format.

Spicer also goes after Biden-era policies that didn’t work – open borders, stagnant growth, eroded deterrence—comparing them with early triumphs during Trump 2.0.

According to Spicer, under Trump 2.0 border crossings have decreased from thousands per day to zero for months – and there has been record investment flooding into the country.

What emerges is less partisan triumphalism than lucid case study of how strategic patience and personnel discipline can convert campaign promises into governing reality.

For advocates of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, Chapter 7—“The MAHA Policy Blueprint”—will feel like the book’s quiet masterstroke.

Spicer devotes sustained, respectful attention to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role as Secretary of Health and Human Services, framing MAHA not as a niche cause but as a foundational pillar of national renewal. He articulates the movement’s ambitions with clarity: to confront America’s chronic-disease epidemic by challenging the iron grip of Big Food and Big Pharma, demanding transparency on vaccines and ultra-processed foods, and shifting federal policy toward prevention, wellness, and personal freedom rather than on what Kennedy ridicules as “sick care.”

MAHA advocates will particularly appreciate how Spicer weaves the movement’s priorities into the broader America First vision, demonstrating that restoring physical and mental health is inseparable from restoring economic vitality, cultural confidence, and sovereign strength.

In an era when public health has too often been politicized or corporatized, Spicer treats MAHA with the seriousness it deserves—as a bold, evidence-driven corrective that belongs at the center of conservative governance.

Throughout his book, Spicer maintains a tone of measured optimism. He candidly acknowledges the first term’s frustrations—internal resistance, relentless investigations, bureaucratic inertia—while celebrating the second term’s structural advantages: pre-vetted loyalists, battle-tested senior staff, and a four-year policy incubation that allowed genuine depth.

The afterword from Vice President JD Vance and Spencer’s concluding reflections reinforce the central thesis: Trump 2.0 is built to endure.

Trump 2.0 is, in the end, a hopeful book written by a master communicator who still believes ideas matter. Spicer makes a persuasive case that the changes underway—on borders, trade, education, government efficiency, and public health—are not fleeting corrections but the foundation of a new political era.

Whether one embraces that vision or approaches it with skepticism, the book offers a lucid, insider’s take into how the second Trump administration is remaking America.

For anyone who has followed Spicer’s journey from the White House briefing room to podcast host and author, this volume marks his most interesting work to date. It is essential reading for those who want to understand the ambitions, early achievements, and long-term aspirations of the second Trump presidency.

Spicer’s measured conviction that America’s best days lie ahead of us feels both ambitious and refreshing.

Trump 2.0: The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America is due out on April 28, 2026 from Regnery but is available now for pre-order.