An uneven performance from one of our foremost celebrity lawyers.
An extended graduation speech by America’s leading legal gadfly.
To his credit, Professor Dershowitz (Law/Harvard Univ.) admits that “I write like I talk.” Readers hoping to find a collection of subtle, elegantly crafted essays about the law will be disappointed. Instead, this collection reads as though it had been dictated within the space of a sleepless 48 hours. But then that’s quintessential Dershowitz: fast-thinking, fast-talking, and unapologetically opinionated. In a series modeled on Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (see Christopher Hitchens’s Letters to a Young Contrarian, p. 1090), Dershowitz dispenses advice to those embarking on careers in the law. His reflections touch on many of his longstanding obsessions, particularly the unethical practices he contends compromise our criminal justice system. Nor can he resist firing off a few gratuitous salvos about his view that the Supreme Court corruptly influenced the outcome of the last presidential election. The Court’s opinion, he writes, “should not be respected, any more than the robed cheaters who wrote it should be respected.” Unlike its flamboyant author, however, little of the advice dispensed here is particularly controversial: Serve your client, not yourself; be willing to advocate for society’s pariahs; and, above all, make career choices that are personally satisfying even if that means forgoing prestige. As though commenting on his current project, Dershowitz observes that certain of his Harvard colleagues resist publishing until a piece is perfect, a search that is “illusory and has no end.” Instead, Dershowitz has opted “to publish my many imperfect books” in order to interject his voice into the “marketplace of ideas”—a highly appropriate motto for this highly imperfect collection.
An uneven performance from one of our foremost celebrity lawyers.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-465-01631-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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