A COSMOPOLITAN LAWYER: JUST SOME READINGS I HAVE ENJOYED LATELY

First, this blog replaces my previous blog, thecosmoplitanlawyerblogspot.com . Second, unlike that earlier blog, the present one is primarily meant as a record of my readings. It is not meant to suggest that others will be or should be interested in what I read. And third, in a sense, it is a public diary of one who is an alien in his own American culture. A person who feels at home just about anywhere, except in his birthplace . . . America.

Sunday, September 30, 2018

Will the FBI investigation solve the battle over Kavanaugh’s confirmation?

BUILDING A DEMOCRATIC CONSENSUS IN THE AGE OF POLARIZATION

Francis Fukuyama, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018) ("Many theorists of modern democracy have argued that passive acceptance of a democratic creed is not enough to make such a system work. Democracy requires certain positive virtues on the part of citizens as well. Alexis de Tocqueville in particular warned of the temptation of people in democratic societies to turn inward and preoccupy themselves with their own welfare and that of their families exclusively. Successful democracy, according to him, requires citizens who are patriotic, informed, active, public-spirited, and willing to participate in political matters. In this age of polarization, one might add that they should be open-minded, tolerant of other view points, and ready to compromise their own views for the sake of democratic consensus." Id. at 159-160.).

Friday, September 28, 2018

Shields and Brooks on Brett Kavanaugh and a 'bubble of hysteria' in poli...

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Lindsey Graham erupts: Kavanaugh hearing an unethical sham

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

IN THE END, WHO OWNS ARTISTIC WORKS?

Benjamin Balint, Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy (New York: Norton, 2018)

Monday, September 24, 2018

INSPECTOR MAIGRET #38

Georges Simenon, Maigret and the Tall Woman (Inspector Maigret), translated from the French by David Watson (New York: Penguin Books, 2016) ("'I hate it when I have to arrest someone like him and send him down. The last time, when he got five years, I almost felt like giving his lawyer a piece of my mind; he had no idea what to do. He's a waste of space, that one.' It was hard to define quite what Bossier understood by 'waste of space', but you knew exactly what he meant." Id. at 23.).

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Monday, September 17, 2018

INSPECTOR MAIGRET #37

Georges Simenon, Maigret Takes a Room (Inspector Maigret), translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside (New York: Penguin Books, 2016) ("All evening, in short, he had had a sense of being in the wrong place and even though he hadn't done anything reprehensible, he felt something like remorse in a cornier of his conscience." Id. at 6.).

Sunday, September 16, 2018

CONGRESSIONAL VIOLENCE

Joanne B. Freeman, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018). Reading this might cause a few twenty-first-century tribal partisans to pause, reflect, and lower their volume.

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Therese Bohman, Drowned: A Novel, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy (New York: Other Press, 2011).

Therese Bohman, The Other Woman: A Novel, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy (New York: Other Press, 2015):

[P]eople can become so obsessed with theories and structures that their whole life is nothing more than an attempt to navigate around them, they refuse to take off their blinkers, to understand that theories are _theories_, not truths, you can't just use them randomly in reality, you can't use the same tools in life as you would in [] textual analysis . . . You can't live according to theories. It shows a complete lack of respect for life itself.

_Id_. at 108.

Therese Bohman, Eventide: A Novel, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy (New York: Other Press, 2018).

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Should Beginner Guitar Players use a Pick or Fingerstyle?

Monday, September 10, 2018

INSPECTOR MAIGRET #36

Georges Simenon, Maigret at Picratt's (Inspector Maigret), translated from the French by William Hobson (New York: Penguin Books, 2016).

Friday, September 7, 2018

Shields and Brooks on Trump tell-all fallout, Kavanaugh confirmation hea...

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL! HUMANS ARE THE PRIMARY CAUSE! WE ARE SCREWED!!

William T. Vollmann, Carbon Ideologies, Volume One: No Immediate Danger (New York: Viking, 2018).

William T. Vollmann, Carbon Ideologies, Volume Two: No Good Alternative (New York: Viking, 2018).

Monday, September 3, 2018

INSPECTOR MAIGRET #35

Georges Simenon, Maigret's Memoirs (Inspector Maigret), translated from the French by Howard Curtis (New York: Penguin Books, 2016).

Sunday, September 2, 2018

WHAT ARE YOU?

Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity (New York: Liveright, 2018) (From the book jacket: "Who do you think you are? That's a question bound up in another. What do you think you are? Gender. Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such affiliations give contents to our sense of self, and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions, and cratered with falsehoods.").