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Currently ReadingRecently Read | I grew up in an era when people still wrote letters. In fact, I remember my mother sitting down at least once a week writing to friends and relatives out of town, many on a weekly or biweekly basis. Today, though, letters are more rare. We tend to rely on email or text messaging to [...]            Tim April 30th, 2012 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Leave a comment |  Print This Post |  Email This PostIt’s a question that appears on a number of state applications to obtain a license to practice law. Do you currently have any condition or impairment which, if left untreated, could affect the ability to practice law? While it seems simple, some of the questions it can raise are not. What are the chances someone [...] Tim February 28th, 2012 | Tags: Book Reviews, Law, memoir, mental illness, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostWar crimes trials are a 20th Century invention. Although a vehicle for punishment and, perhaps, the reestablishment of the rule of law, one has to wonder the extent to which individual defendants truly acknowledge any real guilt. This is seen in the autobiography written by Auschwitz camp commander Rudolf Hoess while in prison following [...] Tim February 21st, 2012 | Tags: Book Reviews, Germany, history, nonfiction, Review Copy, World War II | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAlthough I’ve only read three books this year, my early effort at spontaneity over planning in my reading selections means two of those books were biographies of two women at about the same time. They resulted in impressions as different as the subjects. On the disappointing end of the spectrum was Eva Braun: Life with [...] Tim January 12th, 2012 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, history, nonfiction | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostPeace is a popular term this time of year. You know, “Peace on Earth” and the like. But what does peace mean? Even dictionary definitions show it has varying meaning. Perspective is important. Do we view things externally as in there being no armed conflict, as an internal state of mind, or must both exist [...] Tim December 19th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, nonfiction, peace, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostWe all think about running away at times. We imagine leaving the stresses and obligations of daily life and embarking on a life enhancing adventure. It’s doubtful, though, that Croatia tops the list of escapes for most people. Yet Jennifer Wilson, along with her husband and their two young children, left the comforts of home [...] Tim November 21st, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, nonfiction, Review Copy, travel | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostEarly into reading Anna Funder’s Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, I came across a passage that made me think, “That is truly Kafkaesque.” For some reason, that sent my mind on a digression into the difference between something being Kafkaesque and something being Orwellian. While I eventually sorted it out in my own [...] Tim November 14th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, Germany, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This Post“Idols are best when they’re made of stone,” Joan Baez wrote in a song about Bob Dylan, the songwriting voice of a generation. It could also apply to a man many viewed as being the literary hero of the counterculture. As Charles J. Shields shows in his outstanding biography of the author, Vonnegut was far [...] Tim November 4th, 2011 | Tags: authors, biography, Book Reviews, Kurt Vonnegut, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostThe main ramifications of historic events are frequently easy to see. Often, though, we overlook the ripples that produce unexpected, or even untended, effects. Take 9/11, for example. It didn’t take a great deal of thought to realize it would bring the U.S. into direct armed conflict with al-Qaeda. And it was barely six weeks [...] Tim October 28th, 2011 | Tags: 9/11, Book Reviews, history, Iraq War, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostWorld War II is often seen as the last “good war,” a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. And there was plenty of evil to go around, not just in the Axis forces. Take, for example, the case of Marcel Petiot. Petiot, a French physician, was convicted of murdering 26 people in Paris during World [...] Tim September 16th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Post |         The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.  | ||
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