Pharmacy Badgers on Your Bookshelf

From historical fiction to science comics, these summer reads by School of Pharmacy faculty and alumni authors have something for every reader

By Katie Gerhards

A degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy gives you a strong foundation to pursue careers in pharmacy, leadership, research, and more — including authorship. From Tudor court intrigue and the history of psychedelics to guides for aspiring researchers and entrepreneurs, these eight reads by School of Pharmacy alumni and faculty offer something for nearly every reader.

For the historical fiction fan
King Henry’s Last Daughter

Cynthia Marienthal (BS ’79)

Marienthal remembers constantly scribbling between her pharmacy school classes — and that habit has grown into five novels. Published under the pseudonym Daphne Walter, King Henry’s Last Daughter is the first in her Tudor Series, a collection of historical fiction set in the courts of Tudor England during the reign of Bloody Mary. What if Queen Mary’s determination to keep Elizabeth from the throne led to Elizabeth going into hiding, with a baseborn secret daughter of Henry VIII taking her place? Marienthal explores the possibilities, through political intrigue, a ruthless nobleman aiming for the throne, and the survival instincts of a young woman elevated from poverty.

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For the aspiring researcher
The Perfect Science Career: A Practical Guide to Getting a Job You Will Love

Amy Chung (MS ’06, PhD ’09) and Kwadwo Owusu-Ofori (PhD ’10)

From a former entrepreneur who combined food science and pharmaceutical science, and a regulatory and medical writer with experience in companies ranging from Amgen to Novartis, this book comes with a breadth of experience across academic, government, and tech company roles. Chung and Owusu-Ofori have led career development workshops for graduate students around the country, and in this book, they bring that expertise to a wider audience, listing dozens of unique STEM careers and coaching readers on how to go from job opening to job offer.

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For the recent graduate
Counseling Pearls Pocketbook

Bernard Brooks (PharmD ’20)

Just five years after graduation, Brooks created a concise quick-reference book for student pharmacists, new graduates, or any clinician looking to save time digging through clinical jargon for patient counseling points. It covers safety lists, contraindications, dose adjustments, monitoring pearls, and more — all in just 165 easy-to-navigate pages.

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For a quick read
Honesty

Mark Putzi (PharmD ’11)

With 35 years of construction management under his belt, plus nearly a decade in pharmacy, Putzi has a deep creative well to draw from as an author. He holds a master’s in creative writing and has published more than 30 short stories across the United States, Europe, Australia, and India, as well as two books of poetry. In the dryly funny “Honesty,” he draws on his construction past to bring life to the story of a worker installing window wells and disposing of leftover nails in stake holes in the ground. Soon, dozens of residents file insurance claims for nail injuries — until the insurance rep shows up.

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For the comic book lover
Gaining STEAM

Kelly Montgomery (MS ’16)

As a graduate student at the School of Pharmacy, Montgomery teamed up with other UW–Madison graduate students Khoa Tran and Jaye Gardiner to launch JKX Comics — a project to playfully illustrate scientific concepts in a comic book style for non-scientists. In Gaining STEAM, they illuminate research across the UW campus, from bacteria and DNA folding to what’s going on inside stars.

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For the health-conscious
The Sweetener Book

Eric Walters (BS ’74)

Walters is an educator by trade, preferring to teach medicinal chemistry without lectures and engage students in more active learning. He applies the same love for education in The Sweetener Book, written for consumers looking to untangle the web of natural and artificial sweeteners. Inside, he provides objective scientific information about the pros and cons of each, from calories and glycemic index to taste and stability.

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For the history buff
Break on Through

Professor Lucas Richert

Richert’s passion is making history come alive, drawing connections between current events and their foundations in the often-tumultuous past. In the wide-ranging and lively Break on Through, he explores the radical ideas and therapies championed by social and political outsiders in the 1960s and ‘70s, grounding the therapeutic use of cannabis and psychedelics like LSD and MDMA within the counterculture of the era, with many topics that are directly relevant to contemporary debates about mental health and drug development and regulation. He traces the rise of the Radical Caucus in the mental health field, who led an antipsychiatry movement that worked to dismantle the American Psychiatric Association, as well as the fluid boundary between legitimate and illegitimate drugs. Break on Through was Richert’s third book, following Strange Trips: Science, Culture, and the Regulation of Drugs and preceding Cannabis: Global Histories — plenty of reading material to get you caught up on the complex social history of drugs that are at times both illegal and medicinal.

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For the business-minded
Entrepreneurs in Pharmacy and Other Leaders

George Zorich (BS ’78)

When Zorich looks at the profession of pharmacy, he sees opportunity around every corner. It’s his mission to get others to see and seize those opportunities. In Entrepreneurs in Pharmacy and Other Leaders, now in its second edition through ASHP Publishing, Zorich highlights 12 entrepreneurs behind innovative pharmacy businesses — including fellow alumni Curt Mueller (BS ’57) of Mueller Sports Medicine and Marla Ahlgrimm (BS ’78) of Madison Pharmacy Associates — and more than 30 other leaders who took non-traditional pharmacy career paths and show how the pharmacy degree can be a springboard to careers far beyond the pharmacy counter.

Zorich also practices what he preaches, with over 45 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including running eight healthcare companies and founding mergers and acquisitions advisory firm ZedPharma. To fuel future entrepreneurs, Zorich helped to launch a student group at the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy in 2018 that includes an annual opportunity to pitch business, product, and service ideas to a panel of alumni judges with heavy industry experience in an event called ShaRxTank. The winning teams receive a scholarship — funded by Zorich. 100% of all book proceeds go to the ASHP Foundation.