J. David Fisher
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J. David Fisher

Biographies & Memoirs | Literature & Fiction | Arts & Entertainment
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For more than three decades, David Fisher has been writing about an extraordinary variety of subjects, ranging from major league baseball umpires to Nobel Prize winning biochemists. He is the author of more than 80 books, among them 24 New York Times bestsellers, and has been a frequent contributor to major magazines and newspapers. He is the only writer ever to have a work of non-fiction, a novel and a reference book offered simultaneously by the Book-of-the Month Club. He began his professional career as a staff writer for the late comedienne Joan Rivers’ syndicated talk show, That Show. From there he joined Life Magazine, when it was still published weekly, becoming the youngest reporter in that magazine’s history, covering primarily sports and youth culture. He began his free-lance writing career with a children’s biography of Malcolm X. A year later he co-authored his first bestseller, Killer (Playboy Books) with ‘Joey Black,’ the first confessional written by a Mafia hit man. After writing a second bestseller with Joey Black, Hit #29, which was purchased by Paramount, as well as two additional books, he wrote the very first book about transcendental meditation, Tranquility Without Pills (Wyden Books). He wrote several others books about the world of crime, including Louie’s Widow. In 1980 John William Clouser, who had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list longer than any man in history, contacted Fisher and asked him to arrange his surrender. After surrendering on national television, Clouser and Fisher collaborated on The Most Wanted Man in America (Stein and Day). Fisher began writing about sports in the early 1980’s, co-authoring the two “laugh-out-loud bestsellers” (wrote the Times), The Umpire Strikes Back and Strike Two (Bantam Books) as well as two additional books with legendary umpire Ron Luciano, and former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda’s bestselling autobiography, The Artful Dodger (Morrow). He also collaborated with Eugene Klein, the man credited with inventing junk bonds to put together one of the nation’s first conglomerates, The National General Corporation, and then tried to apply the lessons learned in business to pro football, in the cautionary tale, First Down and A Billion and with Basketball Hall of Fame member U of Arizona coach Lute Olson on his autobiography Lute! The Seasons of My Life. Fisher created a new reference system when he wrote and edited, What’s What, A Visual Glossary of the Physical World (Hammond) which Esquire called, “The most important new reference work published in the past half-century,” and which subsequently was published in nine bilingual editions, selling more than 1,000,000 copies. Fisher’s first novel, The Pack, (Putnam’s) was purchased by Warner Bros. and released as a feature film. His second novel, The War Magician (Coward McCann), based on the true story of magician Jasper Maskelyne, who used the techniques of stage magic against Rommel in the desert and whose classic deceptions were key to victory at El Alamein, was initially optioned by Paramount for Tom Cruise but currently is under option to Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch, has been published in 12 countries. Moving from sports to entertainment, Fisher created and co-authored with George Burns the #1 bestsellers, Gracie, A Love Story and All My Best Friends. George Burns had co-authored five books prior to collaborating with Fisher, none of them bestsellers, and one book after their collaboration, which also failed to hit the bestseller list. The audio version of Gracie, which Fisher wrote and directed, was honored in 1990 with a Grammy for Best Spoken Record. Fisher also created and co-authored with Leslie Nielsen The Naked Truth, (Pocket Books) a parody of celebrity autobiographies dedicated “To the motion industry. The only business in the world in which the trailer comes first.” The audio version of that book was also nominated for a Grammy. He also collaborated with legendary TV and feature film producer and documentarian David Wolper, who is responsible for 10 of the top 50 shows in TV history as well as motion pictures like L.A. Confidential and Willy Wonka on the bestseller, Producer (Scribners). And he collaborated with legendary sidekick Ed McMahon on his memoir, For Laughing Out Loud (Warners) and a history of early television, When Television Was Young. Fisher is the only reporter ever granted complete access to the FBI’s famed crime lab and his book, Hard Evidence, (S&S) has been published in six languages and triggered the explosive worldwide interest in forensic science. His warm and humorous novella, Conversations With My Cat, (Viking) was also published in six languages and after being the #2 bestseller in France, was honored with the ‘Prix Literature de 1,000,000 Amis,’ an award given annually to the best book concerning animals published that year. As Fisher was told by his cat The Bomber, the relationship between cats and humans can be explained simply, “You scratch my back, you scratch my back.” Fisher’s parody, Chicken Poop for the Soul, Stories to Harden Your Heart, (Pocket Books) has sold more than 125,000 copies and led to a second successful collection of his humorous stories, Chicken Poop II: More Droppings. His humor book which featured classic fairy tales as might be written by lawyers, Legally Correct Fairy Tales, (Warner Books) has also sold more than 100,000 copies. His collaboration with the controversial Nobel Prize winning biochemist Kary Mullis, whose invention of the polymerase chain reaction literally changed the world, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, (Pantheon) remains in print almost two decades after publication. His most controversial bestseller, Been There, Done That (St. Martin’s) with Eddie Fisher, received rave reviews from critics and a less kind reception from Eddie Fisher’s former wives. His book Patient Number 1; (Crown) is the incredible story of the CEO of a biotech firm whose own company created the stem cell selection device that saved his life when he was diagnosed with stage 4 Mantle Cell Lymphoma. Later a judge rewrote 103 patent claims, overthrew a jury judgment and put this company out of business, depriving terminally ill patients of this potentially life-saving device. Patient Number 1 currently is in development by producers Janet and Jerry Zucker of Airplane and Ghost fame. Both of Fisher’s collaborations with Hall of Fame quarterback and broadcaster Terry Bradshaw, It’s Only A Game and the inspirational Keep It Simple, (Pocket Books) were bestsellers, as was his collaboration with legendary attorney Johnny Cochran, A Lawyer’s Life. (St. Martin’s Press) In the corporate world Fisher created and co-authored United Airlines 75th anniversary book, The Age of Flight as well as Safe Flight’s 60th anniversary book. When the pharmaceutical firm Warner-Lambert was purchased by Pfizer and was about to lose its corporate identity Fisher created the celebratory book, In Good Company. Fisher also wrote Animals Inc., a humorous novel showing how Orwell’s Animal Farm might have been run using the philosophy of the Gallup Organization, one of America’s leading business consulting firms. Fisher created a new publishing format when he brought together legendary FBI Agent Joseph ‘Donnie Brasco’ Pistone and former Mafia Family head Bill Bonanno for the novel, The Good Guys, which was published by Warner Books in January 2005. In a starred review the influential publication Kirkus Reviews called it “the very model of a high-crime page turner – the kind so often promised and so infrequently delivered.” The New York Post wrote, “Incredibly fun to read. Mario Puzo would be smiling,” and the Times of London called it “A richly entertaining read.” In addition, he has created the computer game, Made Man with a British company which was released in April 2007 -- and Crime Lab, an educational video game. Fisher has also written extensively for newspapers and magazines. His columns have appeared on the Op Ed page of the New York Times and Newsday, and he has contributed many articles to a variety of magazines, ranging from Sports Illustrated to Car and Driver. An article he wrote for Car and Driver, ‘The Birth of My Car,’ was honored as the best automotive feature writing in 1987. Fisher also created and wrote the baseball comic strip, Scroogie, with legendary relief pitcher and character Tug McGraw, which was syndicated in 125 papers for four years, and was published in two collections. (Fawcett) Fisher collaborated with William Shatner on his bestselling autobiography, Up Till Now (St. Martin’s) which was published in 2008 and two subsequent bestsellers, Leonard The Story of A 50 Year Friendship, with Leonard Nimoy, and Live Long and… What I learned Along the Way. In January, 2009, Grand Central Books published The Accountant, Fisher’s collaboration with Pablo Escobar’s brother, Roberto. Roberto was one of the leaders of the infamous Medellin drug cartel, and in this book reveals the story of the rise and fall of the most successful criminal – his brother -- in history. It is currently under option for a movie and thus far rights have been sold in seven countries. In February, 2009 Hudson Street Books published Fisher’s controversial collaboration with former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, the central figure in baseball’s steroid scandal who provided much of the information revealed by Senator George Mitchell in the Mitchell Report. In June, 2009 HarperCollins published Fisher’s collaboration with Detective Tommy Dades (NYPD ret.), and Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Michael Vecchione, the two men who opened the cold case leading to the indictment and conviction of two highly placed New York City detectives who were moonlighting as Mafia killers entitled Friends of the Family, The True Story of the Mafia Cops. That book also remains under movie option. Fisher’s collaboration with Harry Markopolos, the well-known Bernie Madoff whistleblower entitled No One Would Listen, appeared at #6 on the New York Times bestseller list the week of publication and quickly went back to press three times, resulting in over 500,000 copies in print. His collaboration with Sanjiv Chopra, Chairman of the Department of Continuing Medical Education at Harvard Medical School entitled Dr. Chopra Says, about discerning the truth in medical claims (St. Martin’s Press), was published in January, 2011. In the summer of 2012 his collaboration with Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Jack Jacobs, an anecdotal history of military basic training entitled Basic, was published by St. Martin’s Press. That book is currently being developed as a reality show, in which viewers will ‘experience’ basic training. In August, 2012, St. Martin’s published Sapp Attack, Fisher’s book with NFL Hall-of-Fame member and broadcaster Warren Sapp. Fisher’s collaboration with two-time Super Bowl winning coach Tom Coughlin, Earn the Right to Win: How Success In Any Field Starts With Superior Preparation, was published by Portfolio in March, 2013 and became his 18th New York Times bestseller. In 2013 Tom Dunne Books published American Warrior, the amazing story of Special Forces Hall of Fame member and legendary soldier Gary O’Neal. In June, 2013 Amazon published Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny and the American Dream, by philosopher/writer Deepak Chopra and Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, a book that Fisher created and co-authored. This story of two brothers raised in India, who immigrated to America and became world leaders in western and eastern medicine, was also a major bestseller around the world. Fisher’s inside look at America’s most effective – and least known -- law enforcement agency, the U.S. Marshal Service was published to strong reviews in 2014. This is the first time the revamped Marshal Service – which quietly tracked down and arrested 121,000 felons (with an average of four convictions each, half of them designated as violent offenders) in 2012 has cooperated with a writer and made its Deputy Marshals available to a journalist to tell many of their most their amazing stories. His collaboration with Dr. Jan Pol, star of Nat Geo Wild’s wildly successful show, The Incredible Dr. Pol, entitled Never Turn Your Back on An Angus Cow was published in June, 2014 and immediately became his 19th New York Times bestseller. In April, 2015 his book, Bill O’Reilly’s Legends and Lies: The Real West, the companion volume for the Fox News TV series of the same name debuted at #1 on the Times list and has remained there for several months. The second and third books in the series, The American Revolution and The Civil War also topped the Times bestsellers list. In This Together, his collaboration with Ann Romney about her extraordinary fight against multiple sclerosis that has led to the establishment of the ground-breaking Ann Romney Institute for Neurologic Diseases, became his 23rdt Times bestseller. In September, 2015, Fisher worked with then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on his campaign book, Crippled America, which immediately became a major bestseller. His collaboration with the man Maxim magazine honored as ‘One of the Six Most Interesting People You Can Actually Meet’ Richard Garriott was published in 2017. Create/Explore: My Life At the Extremes. Garriott is one of the world’s most creative and successful entrepreneurs and adventurers; the man who essentially invented the multi-player online gaming industry (coining the word ‘avatar’ in that world), convinced the Russians to sell tickets to the International Space Station – where he spent two weeks and now owns the company, and now is actively involved in cutting-edge companies like SpaceX and Tesla. After discovering that a transcript existed for the 27th and last murder trial in which Abraham Lincoln was involved Fisher recruited ABC’s legal correspondent Dan Abrams and their collaboration Lincoln’s Last Trial, which thus far has spent seven weeks in the summer of 2018 on the Times bestsellers list. Although politically Fisher is a proud liberal, and the author with former Member of Congress Robert Wexler of Fire Breathing Liberal, his most recent book, a collaboration with conservative firebrand Glenn Beck, Addicted to Outrage, is being published in September, 2018. He recently completed a political novel, a thriller entitled, How It Happened Here for Tom Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press which will be published in Spring, 2019. Fisher is married and lives in New York with his wife and two sons and one very small, but very self-confident, Chihuahua.
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    • The Pack

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    • By: David Fisher
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