Quick turnaround

Justice, by Michael Sandel. I have at least a passing understanding of the philsophies of Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and others as they attempted to develop a theory of justice. The ideas of justice expressed in the book have already influenced the way I view some of the concepts I teach. In class recently, my discussion about the employment-at-will doctrine was heavily influenced by some of the concepts stated in the book. It was fun to see the students thinking through the questions I posed.

A good book. Sometimes a bit dry, but perhaps it merits my re-reading.

Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith. Are you kidding me? If this book were any more improbable, it would have sprouted wings and flown around the room.

As a suspense book, it was a page turner. As a reminder of the brutality of the Stalinist regime, it stoked my interest. But that said, the plot was totally implausible. That two people, Leo and his wife, Raisa, with no training in criminal investigation in a culture where crime officially didn't exist so that to suggest such was a crime against the State, could discover the identity of a serial killer and confront him is nothing short of a flight of fancy. That they could do so when the murders stretched the length of the country when traveling without papers makes the story even more unbelievable. That a former security police officer, discredited and demoted to the lowest of jobs could manage to solve the crime, elude detection as he snuck back into Moscow, escape from a prison train, and still escape capture with no money just stretches an improprobale story even more. And to end the storys with the hokiest, dime-store ending--of the millions of people who lived in the Soviet Union, the perp was Leo's brother, whom he hadn't seen in 20 years? Yeah, right.

If reading about a serial killer of chidren can be called "light reading", as light reading goes, it was mildly entertaining, but having read in another phase of my reading life a number of tightly written stories of Soviet Russia (The Charm School), this one doesn't come close.


Listening to I, Claudius.

Reading, Gone with the Wind??

Keepin' it brief

Read: The French Lieutenant's Woman. A beautifully written book about existentialism. Sara Woodruff, not defined by Victorian convention. Lives her life, notwithstanding the contstraints of the period. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Some twists in the plot. I'm not sure that I fully understand Sara, but she's what I'd like to think I am or would have been had I lived during that time. I'm not even close.

Read: The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. It only made sense that because I read Gawande's other two books that I would read this one as well. A quick read that extolls the virtues of using checklists. Gawande makes the case for the use of checklists in all areas where the complexity has grown to exceed the abilty of one individual. He relies on examples from the world of finance, aviation, and construction to demonstrate the value of checklists. He makes the case, but probably could have done it just fine with fewer examples. I got themessage from the time I bought the book.

Listening to: Justice.
About to read: Gone With the Wind???