A decidedly simple guide to argument, written with understated style.
This well-crafted, lively book offers a plethora of ways to improve the art of arguing.
“An argument…is a rational discussion in which you prove a point with reasons,” writes attorney Navarra (The Elements of Constitutional Law, 2011). Each brief chapter in this book is peppered with advice, and each is summarized in “The Key,” a one-sentence conclusion. Some of the tips seem self-evident; in “Pick Winners,” for example, Navarra advises, “Choosing the stronger argument increases your chances of winning the argument. But more than that, better arguments make things better.” Other chapters, such as “The Other Side of the Coin,” are somewhat more illuminating; arguments are stronger, the author writes, if they include a counterargument: “Thinking about new counterpoints will elevate your arguing skills to an extremely high level. This is one of the skills that separate the best arguers from the rest.” In “What Will Victory Look Like?,” the author offers a lucid explanation, with examples, of the difference between deductive and inductive arguments. Much of this book’s advice, though, is almost entirely revealed in its chapter titles, such as “Be Open-Minded,” “Watch Your Body Language,” and “Attack Arguments, Not People.” The result may be that some readers find it superficial and lightweight. However, if the author’s intent is to present his topic in supremely understandable terms, he pushes such simplicity to new heights. Navarra writes effortlessly and with total clarity, which will make the book breezy and enjoyable for many readers. In addition, his advice broadly applies to everyday interactions as well, and is often really about effectively communicating with others. Overall, this celebration of sound argument’s pithy remarks, lean sentences, and short chapters make it eminently readable.
A decidedly simple guide to argument, written with understated style.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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