Book Review

Book Review – 053803: Life at Fifteen by Robert J. Gagnon

Posted in: "All, Book Review by Admin | No Comments Wednesday, April 7, 2010

053803 Life at Fifteen

by Robert J. Gagnon

R J Gagnon Publishing; 336 pages; US $14.95 (Kindle eBook)

15 year-old Robert Gagnon needed to kick his drug and alcohol addiction. He decided that by robbing a bank, he would get the assistance he needed so badly. As a young offender, he thought he might have to stay in jail for a few months and he then could start over again. It was December 19, 1975.

Only nothing turned out as he planned. He ended up serving 10 years in an adult prison before he was released in 1985. He grew up in the correctional institutions of the State of Florida.

Gagnon was deemed to dangerous to be placed with other young offenders. Being placed among hardened criminals, 15-year-old Gagnon needed to learn fast and act quickly to survive. So begins this epic story of survival, friendship, and life.

Although the book was written long after Gagnon’s release, the narrative is compelling and the plot page-turning. Gagnon projects his memory onto the pages as accurately as he can and invits the readers to watch the show with him.

During his 10 years in prison, Gagnon transformed from an insecure young man to a content small engine repairman. Details of an inmate’s daily routine are intimately scripted – the chores, the politics, the racism, the sex – they were all there. Gagnon’s story is candid, frank, and sometimes appalling but always fascinating. The inner demons, the insecurity, the anxiety, and the fear of a convict are shared with the readers without reservation.

While Gagnon makes no apologies for what he had to do to survive in jail, readers can feel his remorse and desire to redeem himself as the story carries on.

The book is written, quite understandably, in colloquial language. The dialogue is filled with expletives, as one would expect in a prison setting. The narrative, however, could have been edited more professionally. A few misused words are misused throughout the book. For example, on at least four occasions the word “aspect” is mistakenly used in the place of the word “except,” and the word “then” in the place of “than.” Sentences are sometimes fragmented or run-on with modifiers dangling. The reading would certainly become smoother if these details were looked after.

Despite these minor flaws, the book remains quite enjoyable. A story of self-preservation and redemption, 053803 Life at Fifteen will definitely pique the attention of readers interested in the criminal justice system.

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Book Review – The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Posted in: "All, Book Review by Admin | No Comments Sunday, April 4, 2010

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

Little, Brown and Company; 304 pages; 19.99 paperback

Events and trends sometimes appear to evolve and spread on their own. While most understand that certain diseases like seasonal flus can become epidemic because of the potency of the virus or the environment, not many can explain why Hush Puppies shoes suddenly became popular once again, or why the crime rate in New York City dropped drastically in a matter of months.

Gladwell explains how tends become epidemic. First “the law of the few” emphasizes that it takes a few extraordinary people to participate in the event for it to become epidemic. Such people belong to one of the three classes: “connectors,” individuals with great numbers of acquitances; “mavens,” members of a group who possess extraordinary wealth of knowledge; and “salesmen,” people who are exceedingly persuasive and charismatic.

Second, “the stickiness factor” suggests that some things are more memorable than others. A event can seem to take on a life of its own if it’s sufficiently sticky in the audience’s mind.

Finally, “the power of context” cannot be ignored. Given the right circumstances, seemingly insignificant changes may result in unexpected great changes.

Gladwell’s theory is well illustrated by his opening example of the popular revival of Hush Puppies. Apparently, a few “hip” New York youths decided one day that the shoes were cool. Their many friends became persuaded and started wearing them too. The trend was caught by a few name-brand designers, mavens in the design business. and the shoes were shown on the runway. Finally, the mass media, society’s great persuader, pushed the trend over the tipping point. The next thing you know, teenagers in America were flocking to the malls snatching them up.

However, not every example in the book is as convincing. Gladwell spends more than half a chapter explaining the success of the TV series Sesame Street, which he posits is tailor-made to suit the children’s cognitive development and therefore exceedingly memorable to its audience. Gladwell claims that a second TV show, “Blue’s Clues” was deliberated engineered to piggy-back on the success of Sesame Street by bringing the children’s experience to the next level.

Alas, while I did watch Sesame Street when I was a kid (not finding it that memorable), I have never heard of the show Blue’s Clues. Upon further inquiries in the community, I’ve learned that the series’ fame seems to be confined to the narrow niche of three to five year-olds. Evidently, Blue’s Clues isn’t as memorable to the public as Sesame Street.

In an attempt to explain the sudden and drastic decline in New York City’s crime rate, Gladwell relies on the “broken window” theory. It suggests that after the city imposed a zero-tolerance policy on vandalism, people became disinclined to commit violent crimes.

While the theory provides a convenient explanation of the crime turn-around, Gladwell neglects to address the fact that this theory has been discredited in academia and by criminologists in particular.* They suggest that the theory equates correlation to causality – a type of reasoning prone to fallacy.

Gladwell seems oblivious to the weakness of his examples throughout the book. Most of his arguments are merely self-serving. Potential criticisms are conveniently ignored. The Tipping Point, while suitable for pleasure reading, unfortunately isn’t written for the critical eye.

*see e.g. David Thatcher (2004), Order Maintenance Reconsidered

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Book Review: SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Posted in: "All, Book Review by Admin | No Comments Monday, January 11, 2010

SuperFreakonomics

By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

HarperCollins; 288 pages; $36.99

In 2005 rogue economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner partnered to write Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Filled with interesting topics on teachers who cheat, self-serving realtors, and crack-selling boys living with their moms, it was a blockbuster, remaining on the top seller list of the New York Times for several months.

Fours years later, the authors have brought us the squeal: SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance.

How does SuperFreakonomics measure up the original?

Standing on the shoulders of their previous success, the authors here take on topics that are much bolder. The perils of drunk walking. How much does a prostitute make? Do you make more money if you have a sex change? What about a cheap way to cool the globe?

The book intriguing and amusing at the same time, just like its predecessor. It turns out, a prostitute makes between $16,000 to $300,000 a year. You do make slightly more money if you change your sex from female to male (but not the other way around.) And yes, there are several cheap ways to cool the globe.

That being said, SuperFreakonomics, albeit based on solid academic research, was written for pleasure reading. For a critical reader, some assumptions are just too easily made.

For example, the authors claim that drunk walking is more dangerous than drunk driving based on the assumption that people walk drunk at the same rate driving drunk on a per-mile basis (1 in 140). Because people in America drive so much more than they walk, on a per-mile basis, despite the absolute number of death the authors concluded that drunk walking is more dangerous.

To the critical eye, the conclusion seems arbitrary and convenient.

Other topics appear poorly integrated into the book as  a whole. Some of the amusing tidbits pop up as if the book were a cocktail party. “Why do oral sex become so cheap?” “The introduction of TV in the US leads to increase in crime.” Neither topic fits particularly well with the chapters they were in.

On the otherhand, most of the stories are impressively insightful. For example, on the topic of altruism and selflessness, the author concluded that the human behaviour changes with scrutiny (knowing that they’re being watched) and is influenced by a dazzling complex of incentives, social norms, framing references, and past experiences. I couldn’t help but smile when reading about donating to public-radio stations, something that I have done often.

It may be altruistic when you donate $100 to your local public-radio station, but in exchange you get a year of guilt-free listening (and, if you’re lucky, a canvas tote bag). U.S. citizens are easily the world’s leaders in per-capita charitable contributions, but the U.S. tax code is among the most generous in allowing deduction for those contributions.

I too have enjoyed the canvas tote bag and happily claimed a hefty deduction on my tax return.

In all fairness, the book provides ordinary readers with access to serious economic discussions on supply and demand, consumer surplus, and unintended consequences that they might not find elsewhere. If there’s one thing the authors should have done, they should have added two more chapters to satisfy my curisity.


Image courtesy of Amazon.ca, used for news reporting purposes, all rights reserved.

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Article Review: Justice Denied by Dylan Young

Posted in: "All, Book Review, Business Development, Legal Aid Ontario by Admin | No Comments Thursday, September 17, 2009

“The [boycott] move was not taken lightly. Many lawyers consider legal aid cases a vocational duty. But over the last 15 years that duty has become an untenable burden,” Dylan Young recently wrote for the magazine Precedent.*

Some outsiders, including lawyers practising outside the Legal Aid Ontario system, saw the boycott by the Criminal Lawyers’ Association against Legal Aid Ontario as holding the justice system hostage. “A lawyer’s greed can never be satisfied,” said a man I recently encountered on the subway.

But there’s more to the greed, the proverbial hostage-taking, and the tariff-increase ransom demanded by the lawyers, the author suggests.

Why is an hourly rate of $77.56-$96.56 not enough for lawyers, some might ask. Sean Robichaud, a criminal defence lawyer who built his now thriving practice on cases funded by Legal Aid, has explained as follows:

“[L]et’s say I have a case of a man who started firing a gun into a public place. I have to review all the disclosure, meet with my client several times, go to court appearances, meet with the families and the Crown, review maybe 20 officers’ notes and watch 27 DVDs of CCTV footage – all before I even go to preliminary hearings. If it’s a legal aid case, I’m allotted 16 hours for preparation unless I apply for a big case management exception. The actual work would take two, three , maybe even four times as long.”

Young goes further: “For one of these lawyers to take on a complex serious crimes case and dedicate not only their own time, but also that of articling students, clerks and junior counsel, $96.95 an hour is simply not a feasible way to run business.”

Besides examining these facts of business, the author also pointed out another flaw in the existing Legal Aid system – that of the power imbalance between the Crown and defence counsels.

For example, as Patrice Band, a former assistant Crown attorney, has pointed out: “In serious cases, there would often be two Crown counsel, the police who investigated the case were available to assist and experts would be retained as needed….” “Then I’d look across the aisle and see a defence lawyer working a case alone.”

The low-tariff rate, the petty allotted hours, and the boycott are only the symptoms of the emaciated Legal Aid Ontario. “The [justice] system only works if we accept that and make all the parts of it strong enough to keep all the other parts in check,” mused Robichaud. “Otherwise, it just topples over.”

Well said, indeed.

Dylan Young, “Justice Denied” Precedent (Fall 2009) 23 online:<http://www.lawandstyle.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=730&Itemid=113>

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Book Review: Lawyerland by Lawrence Joseph

Posted in: "All, Book Review by Admin | No Comments Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Lawyerland: What Lawyers Talk About When They Talk About Law

By Lawrence Joseph

(1997) Farrar Straus Giroux; 225 pages; $31.00

What do lawyers talk about when they talk about law?

Joseph, a law professor at St. John’s University School of Law, reveals what lies underneath a lawyer’s skin through fictional interviews with lawyers from different areas of the law -  criminal defence , corporate commercial, labour, personal injury, you name it – including judges.

Throughout the book, Joseph’s focus is not on what a lawyer does for a living – that’s rather apparent. Rather, through concisely written dialogues, Joseph presents how lawyers think, process, and live as lawyers.

Underneath the professional “tough skin,” it’s surprising how vulnerable and timid lawyers can be. The lawyers revealed in this book are filled with self-doubt and insecurity, but also sometimes egotism and arrogance.

Joseph engages interviewees with questions such as whether law is a “business” and whether “justice” matters.

The answers are far from clear. A young D.A. casually rants on the deficiencies of the criminal justice system while appraising the quality of his lunch. A federal judge talks about her keen observation of litigants in her courtroom shortly before she states that “lawyers don’t live in the real world.”

The dialogues are sometimes shifting and without focus. However, I suspect the author has intentionally constructed them that way. As the tone of the book is even and non-judgmental, readers may occasionally lose track as to what is being debated by the characters.

The book sheds insight on what lawyers talk about when they talk about law: this bittersweet profession.

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The Origin of Legalese: Book Review of “The Secret Life of Words” by Henry Hitchings

Posted in: "All, Book Review, Legalese Dictionary by Admin | No Comments Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English

By Henry Hitchings

2008, Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 440 pages; $29.95

I admit it: the language of law, even today, remains convoluted. Open a commercial contract, for instance, and you’ll see double-barrelled legalese like “keep and maintain,” “goods and chattels,” “will and testament,” and “indemnify and hold harmless.” The two parts of these familiar legal terms mean largely the same thing. So where did these redundancies come from, and why do they survive?

According to Henry Hitchings’s new book, “The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English,” the phenomenon goes a long way back.

In 1066 Duke William of Normandy invaded England and claimed the throne. French became the ruling language of England for the next 300 years, and the law was no exception. During this period legal terminology was refined, and new jargon – words like jury, justice, plea, plaintiff, lease, larceny, and crime - was imported or introduced from French. As English law became more sophisticated, the legal uses of French grew increasingly specialized.

It was not until 1362, when the Statute of Pleading was enacted, that English became the language of Parliament and the law. Although the statute declared that all pleas should be couched in English and promoted the idea that using English in courts would dispel confusion, it stipulated that court records be kept in Latin.

But the closed ranks of the legal profession resisted the latter part of  the transition. French remained the language for legal writing and thinking for the next 300 years, with generous help from Latin – words like affidavit and subpoena – which “conveyed an air of precision and authority unavailable to English.” Hitchings concludes, “To this date the language of the law proves prolix, repetitious, archaic and theatrical.”

Mr. Hitchings’s writing is precise yet surprisingly accessible to the average reader. Nonetheless, the discussion of the origins of words grows dense at times, and it takes effort to digest the immense contents under the broad heading of etymology and linguistic history. At the same time, the book is full of pleasant yet surprising nuggets. (For instance, I learned that the word sofa is of Arabic origin, and paper tiger is transplanted from Chinese.)  In the end, this book is a pleasantly rewarding read.

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Book Review: Kitchen Confidential vs. Waiter Rant

Posted in: "All, Book Review by Admin | No Comments Monday, December 1, 2008

Kitchen Confidential (Updated Edition) by Anthony Bourdain
2007, Harper Perennial; 312 pages; $14.95

Waiter Rant by The Waiter, Steve Dublanica
2008, HarperCollins; 302 pages; $26.95

Mr. Bourdain’s bittersweet tale of being a chef rippled through the mass media in 2000 when it was first published. The candid account of his 25-plus years in the culinary industry outraged some (mostly restaurant owners), delighted some (mostly culinary professionals), and shocked many (the public).

Mr. Bourdain discovered his passion for food when he was ten, while on a family vacation to France. He stumbled into the restaurant business when he took a job as a dishwasher in Provincetown during his college years. This was when he discovered the dysfunctional yet fascinating world of the culinary profession. The eye-opening experience as a novice cook introduced him to the world of booze, drugs, power, and money. He knew by then there was no turning back.

Mr. Bourdain’s tales are candid and raw. He starts as a ruthless punk and finishes as a professional chef. How the 25-plus years have changed him is remarkable, although Mr. Bourdain rarely dwells on retrospective analysis . Rather, he relies on his stories to lead the way.

In a mere 300-some pages, Mr. Bourdain explains why readers should not order seafood on Mondays, why so many restaurants fail, why good cooking is not about creativity, how to get professional-grade cookware cheap, and how he keeps on top of things via his private intelligence network.  As a result, his narrative is sometimes choppy.

Mr. Dublanica, a.k.a. The Waiter, dishes out his take on life as a professional waiter. After hitting rock bottom in his personal life  and finding himself on the brink of a breakdown, he started working as a waiter so he could sort things out . Several years later, his supposedly temporary gig slowly solidified into a permanent profession. He started to write down his observations and thoughts on his blog in 2005. Soon the popularity of the blog grew, and it gave birth to the book Waiter Rant.

Since Mr. Dublanica has worked in the industry for a shorter period than Mr. Bourdain, his book’s contents are notably thinner than those of Kitchen Confidential.

As the title suggests, Mr. Dublanica mostly rants. He rants about the dysfunctional work environment, the misfit workers, the paranoid owners, the lousy tippers, the holiday horrors, the good (or bad) money, and the madness of a waiter’s life.

The first half of the book is devoted to exposing the ugliness and the craziness of the restaurant industry. In his own words, waiters today are expected to be “food allergy specialists, sommeliers, cell-phone-rule enforcers, emergency medical technicians, bouncers, receptionists, joke tellers, therapists, linguists, punch  bags, psychics, protocol specialists, and amateur chefs.”

As his journey progresses, Mr. Dublanica realizes that he is also supposed to know how to fix air conditioners, find a bottle of replacement wine within ten minutes, stop customers from having sex in the washroom, cut drunk patrons off, and wring tips out of cheap guests. The tales are arranged into a fictional year, from New Year’s Eve to Valentine’s Day and then on to Mother’s Day, the 4th of July, Labour Day, and Thanksgiving.

As time goes by, fewer and fewer facts are presented and more and more personal reflections are added to the mix. Money, power, alcohol, and stress gradually overtax him until Mr. Dublanica is desperate to get out of the waiter’s life. Only after he quits his job as headwaiter does he realize that perhaps it is possible to find inner peace by starting all over again.

Mr. Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential is heavy on factual content  while the narrative is sometimes disrupted. Mr. Dublanica’s Waiter Rant delivers his waiter’s perspective cynically yet in a way we can all relate to. The two books in essence describe a dysfunctional industry behind the scenes, full of misfits and addicts, that is rarely seen by the public.

For more information:

Visist The Waiter’s blog at http://www.waiterrant.net

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Book Review: Lawyers Gone Bad

Posted in: "All, Book Review by Admin | No Comments Sunday, September 14, 2008

Lawyers Gone Bad

By Philip Slayton

2007, Penguin Group (Canada)

294 pages; $36.00 hardcover, $13.50 mass market paperback

Welcome to the book review section of my blog! As reading is my favourite past-time, I’d like to share some thoughts with you about the books I’ve just read.

When Philip Slayton’s book Lawyers Gone Bad first came out in 2007, Maclean’s magazine ran an article commenting on how lawyers are bad people (I’m paraphrasing); the article triggered an uproar within the legal community. The Canadian Bar Association went so far as to issue a press release condemning the article.

After reading the book, I think the uproar was an overrated reaction. True, Slayton’s book described and discussed a dozen dishonest lawyers who got disbarred; however, nowhere in the book does the authoer imply that all or most lawyers are bad people. In fact, the author states that most lawyers are honest hardworking people, and the dishonest ones are the exception rather than the rule.

Individuals featured in this book vary from dishonest lawyers who mishandled clients’ funds (Chapter 2 on Donaldson and Chapter 3 on Cooper), to lawyers who helped clients commit fraud (Chapter 11 on Shead and Chapter 12 on Wirick), to lawyers who abused their positions to gain sexual favours (Chapter  8 on Johnston and Chapter 9 on Bomek).

The book is well-researched. The author diligently gathered information from court records, newspaper clippings, and sometimes interviews with the featured individuals. The cases are described in detail, often with footnotes. While some readers may find the notes informative, I found them distracting.

I also believe that Slayton’s narrative approach leaves some room for improvement. The author too often quotes directly from court files and newspapers, and the result is an inconsistent tone. At times the flow of the stories is interrupted by minor details that are not central to the case.

While I won’t comment on the individual cases discussed in the book, it is fair to summarize the lawyers profiled as individuals who made poor decisions in their careers.

Suffice it to say that these are sorrowful stories that could easily have happened to rogue members of any other profession – doctors, nurses, teachers, accountants. I don’t think the book paints lawyers in a bad light; rather it serves as a reminder to the public, as well as the legal profession, that every action has its consequences.

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