Law School alumni write and publish books on a wide variety of topics. If you have written a new book and want to tell us about it, please send all pertinent information to: UVA Lawyer, 580 Massie Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903; or lawalum@virginia.edu. Fiction
Chain Thinking continues the story of lawyer-cum-detective Shep Harrington, in a murder mystery wrapped around a sensitive social issue. Kikora, a chimpanzee left in Shep’s initially reluctant care, has been liberated from living as the property of DMI — a mega medical conglomerate that uses animals like her for biomedical testing. According to Bancroft Press, Chain Thinking poses hard-to answer ethical quandaries directed at the way non-human animals are treated in our society. “Chain thinking” is a mode of assigning value to living things based on their place in the Great Chain of Being. According to chain thinking, all living things exist at the pleasure of humans because they are soulless and of less value. Legally, living things below man have no legal status other than property. Shep’s quest to find the killer of a scientist at DMI leads him to discover how cruel chain thinking can be. See www.smalltownmysteries.com. Elliott Light is writing the third in the series now, and practices law with Roberts, Abokhair, and Mardula in Reston, VA.
According to Scribner, Fairstein’s latest in a series featuring her alter ego, Alex Cooper, can be summed up as follows: “It’s going to be a tough trial.” Manhattan sex-crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper’s case, involving an attack on investment banker Paige Vallis, would be difficult to prove even without the latest development — it seems that Paige has something to hide. Most of her story is clear. She’d had dinner with New York consultant Andrew Tripping three times before the March evening when she accepted his invitation to accompany him to his apartment. But what occurred that night? Why didn’t she leave the apartment when he started to act strangely? What about Tripping’s little boy, Dulles? What happened to the child that fateful evening? And who is the strange man whose appearance in the courtroom seems to terrify Paige? While Alex’s police detective friend Mercer Wallace helps her learn more of the sad details behind the increasingly puzzling rape case, colleague Mike Chapman is uptown in a decaying Harlem brownstone where 82-year-old McQueen Ransome has been murdered, her apartment ransacked. What could this impoverished, elderly woman have possessed that could have inspired such violence? Photographs on the wall suggest that “Queenie” was once a beautiful and voluptuous young woman who traveled to faraway places. Could there be a clue to her murder in her exotic background? Her murder will be only the first. Others follow, as the tragic strands of the Paige Vallis and McQueen Ransome cases begin to converge in a poignant alliance of two women from very different worlds. Faced with formidable personal and professional choices, Alex must learn the old lesson that appearances can deceive, even as she heads for a showdown in which her wits and her courage will be tested as never before.
It was only a split second — but that’s all it took for Secret Service agent Sean King’s attention to wander and his protectee, third-party presidential candidate Clyde Ritter, to die. King retired from the Service in disgrace, and now, eight years later, balances careers as a lawyer and a part-time deputy sheriff in a small Virginia town. Then he hears the news: Once again, a third-party candidate has been taken out of the presidential race — abducted right under the nose of Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell. King and Maxwell form an uneasy alliance, and their search for answers becomes a bid for redemption as they delve into the government’s Witness Protection Program and the mysterious past of Clyde Ritter’s dead assassin. But the truth is never quite what it seems, and these two agents have learned that even one moment looking in the wrong direction can be deadly. Full of shocking twists and turns, and introducing a villain to rival Jackson in Baldacci’s The Winner, Split Second is pure, mind-numbing adrenaline to the last page. Non-Fiction Echoes of the Last World War Echoes of the Last World War are the memoirs of William Sanders, whose war experiences include his service as a U.S. Marine Reconnaissance Officer for which he received the Navy Cross, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart Awards. These experiences have led him to conclude that another World War must be precluded by worldwide police action. Saunders is currently practicing in Princeton, WV, and more than 25 lawyers have begun their practice in his offices.
A portrait of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation notes its establishment as the first international organization created to address "trade and the environment" issues, discussing such topics as the unprecedented resources and opportunities available within North America and what the agency can teach mainstream society about environmental protection and economic integration.
Ordinary Issues — Extraordinary Solutions: A Legal Guide for the Colorado GLBT Community addresses the extent to which legal protection is afforded to gay, lesbian, bi, and transgender (GLBT) individuals with regard to the following: relationships and families; financial and estate planning; workplace concerns; and issues uniquely concerning GLBT members. Laws involving the GLBT community are changing nearly every day, according to the publisher. The outcome of any given case is anything but certain. Ordinary Issues — Extraordinary Solutions also includes a discussion of the potential impact of the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas. This recent court case challenged the Texas Homosexual Conduct law on equal-protection grounds, as the law criminalized sexual intimacy by same-sex couples, but not identical behavior by heterosexual couples. The ruling could have repercussions for GLBT individuals throughout the country. See www.bradfordpublishing.com. |
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Nonfiction (continued)
Poetry Daily presents the best of more than 2,000 poems previously featured on the Poetry Daily website from its founding editors. Three hundred and sixty-six days of poetry (including Leap Day) from 366 different contemporary poets such as Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins, Seamus Heaney, J.D. McCatchy, Kay Ryan, Anne Waldman and others, are arranged appropriately for the specific day of the year or season. The Poetry Daily website has been used by more than 2.6 million people, and it receives more than eighty-three million hits per year, making it the most popular poetry website on the Internet. The editors of Poetry Daily, who bring poetry to the masses every day, have done the hard work for us — carefully selecting the poetic gems from a vast array of literary journals, poetry magazines, collections and other anthologies. Now readers can enjoy a poem-a-day anytime, anywhere with this “thoughtful, lively collection,” according to Sourcebooks. Find the book and poems galore at www.poems.com. Representing the Elderly or Disabled
Client Elder law is, in large measure, a planning practice focused on Medicaid planning, estate planning, and planning for persons with disabilities. Added to this are the demands of estate administration and guardianship. The result is a practice that is heavily burdened with forms. Representing the Elderly or Disabled Client delivers all the necessary forms along with the baseline systems that will streamline the process, allowing the practitioner to use his or her time more efficiently. Representing the Elderly or Disabled Client goes beyond the essentials to ensure that you have all that is required to serve compassionately and responsibly the special needs of the elderly or disabled client, according to the RIA’s website for essential resources for tax and accounting professionals. See www.riahome.com for ordering information.
Husband-and-wife sailing team Mashaw and MacClintock recount the adventures of their year-long cruise from Connecticut to Grenada and back. The account details how they handle every aspect of the trip, from sailing and navigation to engine maintenance and piloting issues, by reading guides and histories covering the territories they crossed on their course. Yet their tale still contains some uncertainty; even in the best-planned trip problems naturally arise. MacClintock’s illustrations highlight the narrative, and the chapters alternate throughout between Mashaw and MacClintock’s two complementary voices; they share the storytelling just as they shared the journey itself, according to Sheridan House. The book is billed as a romance, a comedy, and a search for personal meaning. Find more on the book at www.sheridanhouse.com.
The only collection of photographs devoted to one of America’s natural treasures, Shenandoah: Views of Our National Park documents one man’s decades long fascination with this uniquely beautiful region in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Hullihen Williams Moore has been visiting Shenandoah National Park since the mid- 1960s, but it was after studying with Ansel Adams in 1979 that he began seriously photographing it. Through 51 black and white duotone photographic prints, Moore reveals the quiet beauty of Shenandoah National Park. From grand vistas and waterfalls to the delicate unfurling of new ferns, these photographs capture the singular appeal that attracts 1.7 million visitors to the park each year. In two essays, Moore addresses the natural and human history of the park as well as his own personal experience of it, including the stories behind the individual images. The author has also included an appendix of technical details regarding the photographs. See www.upress.virginia.edu for more on the book.
Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), Attorney General to Queen Elizabeth I, Lord Chief Justice under James I, author of the Reports and the Institutes, remains one of the common law’s most commanding figures, according to Stanford University Press. This groundbreaking biography, Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age, covers the Elizabethan years in which Coke set his course and earned a reputation for broad learning and obstinate independence. The essays collected in this volume provide a broad context for understanding and appreciating Coke’s theory of law, his work as a lawyer and judge, his role in pioneering judicial review, his leadership of the Commons, and his place in the broader culture of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Sir Edward Coke claimed for judges the power to strike down statutes, created the modern common law by reshaping medieval precedents, and, in the House of Commons, led the gathering forces that would ultimately establish a constitutional regime of ordered liberty and responsible, representative government. His Reports and Institutes are fundamental sources of legal doctrine and authority. Author Allen D. Boyer is a lawyer for the New York Stock Exchange and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review. He has achieved some local fame for having written the biography almost exclusively during his daily commute on the Staten Island Ferry.
Written by someone whose credentials include falling into a Norwegian crevasse and having to be helicoptered out of the White Mountains through sheer clumsiness, this short but punchy book will be a delight to beginner and expert alike, to say nothing of armchair athletes, according to 1stBooks. James B. Kobak, Jr., has published humor and satire in national and regional publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Travel & Leisure, and the New York Law Journal, among others. He has combined his trenchant wit with years of failure as a cross-county skier to provide a uniquely droll and readable perspective on this increasingly popular form of sport and exercise or, as Mr. Kobak prefers to think of it, torture. See www.1stbooks.com. On a more serious note, Kobak served as editor of a book on the patent misuse doctrine titled, Patent Misuse: Licensing and Litigation, which was published by the American Bar Association in 2000. Links to websites external to the University of Virginia should not be considered endorsement of those websites or any information contained therein. |
Chain Thinking
The Kills
Split Second
Greening NAFTA: The North American
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Ordinary Issues — Extraordinary
Solutions: A Legal Guide for the Colorado GLBT
Community
Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from
the World’s Most Popular Website
Seasoned by Salt
Shenandoah: Views of Our National
Park
Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan
Age
The Wimp’s Guide to Cross-
Country Skiing
