The Velvet Hammer™ -

Good trial lawyers tell pretty good stories. 

Mistrial by Mark Geragos and Pat Harris is a nonfiction book of pretty good short stories tied together with a more lofty agenda: addressing  the institutional erosion of the defense of reasonable doubt.

Here are the good things about the book:  It is written in a punchy attention grabbing style and the stories are of the sensational variety.   Both lawyers know what they're talking about.

They lay out their insights - bam - right between the eye brows.  Like this:

[V]ery few young men and women who graduate from law school will ever try a case.  Some of them end up in areas of law where trials are virtually nonexistent, such as intellectual property or antitrust.  Others go into large law firms where they are never the ones allowed to actually try a case.  But many are frankly just too scared to do it.  There are a large number of lawyers, many calling themselves trial lawyers, who are petrified of going to trial.  You can identify the really nervous ones because they are always the biggest blowhards, screaming and threatening that if they don't get what they want the will just go to trial.  Invariably if you look at them and say, "Okay, let's pick a jury," they fold like a cheap suit.

That really is quite clever. 

They go after obnoxious people.  Like Nancy Grace.  Even though I don't watch t.v. at home, I've been unable to escape her many nights on the treadmill at the gym.  They lay it all out there like this:

Grace was once a Georgia prosecutor known for being tough and for committing multiple acts of prosecutorial misconduct.  "Prosecutorial misconduct" is legalese for saying she lied and cheated.  In fact, appellate courts in Georgia found that she had committed prosecutorial misconduct three separate times in a nine-year career.

So the book is quite entertaining.   

Yet one of the authors' missions is to change the way people think about the criminal justice system.  To heighten awareness as to its increasingly lopsided nature.  And to perhaps influence future jury pools. By reminding them of the importance of proving beyond a reasonable doubt.

This doesn't happen.  It can't happen.  Because the authors are dedicated fighters for the defense.  The book is written to highlight their point of view.  It is not subtle.  It doesn't pretend to be objective.  And as all trial lawyers know - people won't change their minds just because you tell them to. 

This one gets a B-.  It would have been better if Geragos and Harris could have spent more time on it.  But hey - they're in-demand trial lawyers.  So the fact they squeezed out any time to write this is deserving of applause.

Ron Clark is a blogging buddy and a distinguished practitioner in residence at Seattle U.  Talk about a cool job.

He sent me his latest book that he wrote with one of my dear friends Bill Bailey (and a third author George Dekle):  Cross-Examination Handbook.

It is not as small as my hand however. 

At almost 400 pages and with a CD of case files it is safe to say that this is an exhaustive reference book and practice manual.

I like that it is not just line after line of text.  There are pictures in it (O-Jay for one).  Cute little boxes highlight techniques like - "Impeachment by contradiction."  And my favorite - "Don't Stop: the liar-liar technique."

This is a law book written by actual attorneys who have practice law.  [No offense meant to the purely academic writers].  This book transcends what a person can learn in law school.  It takes you right into the courtroom.

My sister Susan gave me this book last time I was in L.A.  The cover is a still from the movie of the same name starring the writer of the book - Steve Martin.  I almost never read a book that has a movie for its cover.  But Pooh (some nicknames are meant to last forever) tells me I'll like it.  Plus this is a novella - not a book - since it is only 130 pages long.

Mirabella works at Neiman Marcus in the glove department.  If you picture that whole set up in your mind, you know just how exciting that must be.  She is a lovely, unenlightened, repressed, solitary figure who has a fling with Jeremy because she wants to feel the warmth of a human hug; then later enchants a letch named Ray Porter.  Who will she end up with hmmmmm.....

 The narrator speaks in a voice that does not really interface with the characters.  It is an objective, removed voice that is amused in a matter of fact sort of way.  The prose is pretty and clever but never cutesy.  There are no gags.  Just astute, simple sentences that eventually enchant me.

"Jeremy arrives thirty minutes later and leans against the wall with a slouch so extreme that he appears to have left his skeleton at home."  Can't you just picture Steve Martin writing that.

I don't plan on seeing the movie.  These characters are fully formed in my mind and I don't want them to change.

I'll give this book a B+.

I read this book by Toni Morrison on the plane ride back and forth to Lewiston ID.   Set in the late1600s it is told about and through the voices, thoughts and dreams of a farmer/trader, his wife, a young slave girl Florens, two other women slaves, and a free blacksmith.  Sometimes you lose track of who is narrating.  It is poetical, emotional and elemental.  Interestingly the two main male characters are perhaps in someways the most decent.   The story builds to a conclusion that encapsulates the core essence of the main characters  and and the circle that they have found themselves within.  It deserves an A-.

Ok, I resist reading this book because it just seems a bit too "touchy feely" even for me.  But there it is, beckoning to me on an airport store shelf.  Plus I love Julia Roberts and have every intention of seeing the movie...so...  The author, Elizabeth Gilbert takes us thru the traumas of her self absorption.  From her neurotic yet intelligent viewpoint, she takes us on a journey of self enlightenment that sometimes jars my nerves so greatly that I skip a page .  She has such a restless tortured spirit for so much of the book that I feel myself becoming aggravated.  Still, she is so vulnerable in laying bare her angst, that I give her points for the sheer audacity of coming forward with it all. 

The story begins with the demise of her marriage, which she does not really describe.  I could see doing this if there were children involved - you would want to protect them.  But there are no children.  Considering this is a "tell all", it makes no sense to skip the details of the dying marriage.  After all, that is the seminal event that spurs the one year hiatus to Italy, India and Bali.  Talking about episodes of "crying on the bathroom floor" doesn't count.  All in all, there are thought provoking moments. And I generally liked the style of her self-deprecating writing - though there were too many metaphores.  I'll give it a B.

China in the 1970s was not a particularly joyous place.  At least not for the parents of Gu Shan who begin the day (and the novel) girding themselves for her execution.  I decide to read this book because it and the author (Yiyun Li) have been given good reviews.  There are substories within the main story - a cast of odd  characters including an unfortunate 12 year old girl who when in utero, was the  recipient of a brutal beating by Gu Shan (a political dissenter).  The girl is twisted physically, though quite astute.   There is a little boy and his pup, a street sweeping couple that rescued discarded girl infants, a radio announcer and her besotted husband.   Alas, there is no happy ending for anyone.  But it did transport me to a world of deprivation and unfairness that helps put life in better perspective.   I'll give it a B.