1) There are many kinds of willful blindness, personal, financial, criminal, etc. A recent story about the Sandusky trial mentioned the following book. I started reading it over the weekend and it’s hard to put down:
“Willful Blindness,” by Margaret Heffernan
2) If you need another good summer read, try this one:
“People before profit: the inspiring story of the founder of Bob’s Red Mill,” by Ken Koopman
A public librarian colleague sent us the link to the excellent article on “How to Introduce an Author,” by Janet Potter, April 30, 2012, from millions dot com:
Excerpt: “The worst author introduction I ever saw is making me cringe, right now, as I remember it. The co-owner of the bookstore started by reading through the store’s upcoming events flier, pausing to extemporize on each event. This took a full 10 minutes. Then she spent 5 minutes talking about ....” [Link to full article.]
Malcolm Gladwell and the Freakonomics Guys aren’t the only ones who want to burst a few of your bubbles and shake up your world of assumptions:.
I’ve come into close contact (!) with these 3 books & writers in the past few weeks and thought I’d note their titles here for my book-loving readers:
1) “Quiet” was terrific (and was written by a lawyer), but none of the reviews I’ve read so far have mentioned how funny the author is when she lets her droll sense of humor loose:
Yes, Charles Dickens was very hard on lawyers, but he also had at least one lawyer hero (albeit a rather reluctant one, but definitely endearing rather than greedy or diabolical) and maybe more than one.
My favorite Dickens novel, “Our Mutual Friend,” has a nice-guy lawyer hero – 2 in fact – and as fabulous an array of characters as you’ll find in any Dickens’ writing.
Life, which is not Black or White or On or Off, and that may or may not be “as it is written,” gives us much to think about if we are so inclined.
In Law: Anyone who teaches law, thinks about law, or is faced with the law has to think about the “What Ifs” in life.
Here is a simplified example of “What if” dialogues – and anyone who has taken a criminal law class or thought about crime and punishment in the face of actual crimes committed by actual people is familiar with this mental gyration:
If you’re a history buff or just (!) a bibliophile, this Government Book Talk Blog is for you.
What award did they win? The Silver Inkwell Communications Award.
Law librarian colleagues brought a Legal Informatics Blog post to my attention: Susskind on the End of Lawyers.
There are a zillion links to commentary on the book. I found Carolyn Elefant’s 3/24/09 My Shingle blog post and Comments particularly interesting – and practical: And what it means for solos.
Oregon Federal Public Defender, Steve Wax, has written a book, Kafka Comes to America, about his experiences representing Guantanamo prisoners and Brandon Mayfield (whom I blogged about, in The Law Librarian and the FBI).
Thanks to Jack Boganski for the lead!
Oregon Legal Research Blog