Every bit as provocative and entertaining as the man himself.
The legal affairs correspondent for USA Today examines the life and legal philosophy of the Supreme Court’s most colorful, combative and controversial Justice.
Antonin Scalia did not invent the doctrine of originalism, but he has been its most prominent practitioner during his 22 years on the Court. Rejecting the notion of a so-called “living” or “evolving” Constitution and disparaging the influence of international law, Scalia has emerged as a conservative champion, decrying the meddlesome ways of Court colleagues “busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.” Skeptical about the authority, indeed, the capacity of judges, Scalia prefers a legislative resolution of democracy’s contentious issues—abortion, affirmative action, etc.—and takes a broad view of executive power. Fluently discussing the cases he has authored and those in which he has famously dissented, Biskupic (Sandra Day O’Connor, 2005) sets out the origins of Scalia’s judicial philosophy and explains its increasing influence. The book’s real charm, however, lies in her treatment of the man. She traces the important influences on Scalia—the lessons from his immigrant parents, the centrality of his Catholic faith, the early professional experiences in the Nixon justice department—and offers a portrait of a man quite unlike any other judge. Especially against the decorous backdrop of the Supreme Court, Scalia stands out for his brashness in argument, his clever, sometimes contemptuous, prose and his willingness to express opinions in a variety of public forums. Biskupic acknowledges his intellectual brilliance but criticizes him for his tetchiness with the press, for his seeming inability to concede at least the appearance of conflicts of interest and for his willingness to depart from originalism—Bush v. Gore, anyone?—when it appears to serve his own political inclinations. Legal scholars have written more about Scalia than any other living Justice. Now, in terms of accessibility for the general reader, Biskupic gives the rest of us an inside look at what the fuss is all about.
Every bit as provocative and entertaining as the man himself.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-374-20289-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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