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Book Club Questions for Aviva Orenstein’s 2016 novel Fat Chance
The main information page for this book is found here. This page is dedicated to questions and themes raised by the novel, suggested for classroom use and, especially, book clubs. For more information and interaction with the author, contact Aviva at aorenste [at] indiana [dot] edu. Discussion Questions for Fat Chance 1. Claire struggles with her weight and her body image. Why does she feel so bad about her body? Is her attitude typical? How does her self-image affect her life? How does it change over the course of the book? 2. At the end of Chapter 29, Claire asks herself: “Really, why was I so angry all the time?”…
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Cicero’s On Old Age is adapted and illustrated for today’s reader, with commentary and humor
Richard Gerberding, retired Professor of History and Director of Classical Studies at Alabama-Huntsville, adapts On Old Age for a new generation of readers. Illustrator Lance Rossi of Salem, Oregon, contributes over 60 clever drawings and sketches. The Wall Street Journal named it one of the year’s six “Best Books on Making the Most of Later Life.” There’s no edition paying homage to Cicero anywhere like this. (If link to WSJ above does not reveal the entire Feature Story, click on the first entry at this search.) Cicero’s classic essay is now adapted, explained, and updated to today’s world. “Getting old is not for sissies”: the mortal words of Bette Davis. And…
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Costigan’s new novel The Rat-Taker is a mystery and period piece, of plague and 1300s London
Set in 14th Century London during the time of the Great Pestilence, THE RAT-TAKER is about an obsessive love and a tragic event coiled into one mystery. Simon the Rat-Taker, or, as he came to called, Simon Ratiker, is a man obsessed by a terrible event that he cannot wholly remember. Driven by the question, “What did happen?” Simon attempts to recall the truth by dictating to his scribe the events of the day that became the cross point of his life: “the day the rats began to die.”
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Jay Jacobs’ novel-like The Widow Wave offers exciting account of wrongful death trial from shipwreck
Will anyone ever know what happened to the Aloha, a sport fishing boat that vanished with all onboard in the Pacific off San Francisco’s coast? ‘Knowing’ may be a complex, inexact business. There’s real truth and then there’s courtroom truth; a jury’s verdict may or may not approach what actually happened. Nor can someone reading about such an event—one that had no witnesses or hard evidence to explain it—be sure where the truth lies. But trials, judges, and juries are what we use in our legal system to find truth. The Widow Wave explores this alternate reality. It is a fascinating true-life mystery and lawyer procedural rolled into one. Jay Jacobs…
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Selznick’s The Organizational Weapon is Digitally Remastered,™ adding extensive new foreword by Martin Krygier
The Organizational Weapon is a classic study of the methods, propaganda, and institutions which create infiltration and eventually cooptation of organizations from within. The study applies its theory to communist techniques, but its analysis and insights have, over the years, become extremely useful in identifying and combating such methods in jihadist cells, terrorist organizations, and political groups of many varieties, not only from the Left. Its utility is demonstrated in how it has influenced and been cited by current writers on how extremist and politically astute groups recruit and infiltrate more benign organizations to make them tools of further expansion in power and action. The book is also considered excellent…
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Hirsch’s enduring The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter explores the contradictions of the influential jurist
A recognized, fascinating, and much-cited classic of judicial biography and Supreme Court insight is now available in a quality ebook edition—featuring active contents, linked notes, proper formatting, and a fully-linked Index—as well as a new paperback reprint edition. Felix Frankfurter was perhaps the most influential jurist of the 20th century—and one of the most complex men ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Mysteries and apparent contradictions abound. A vibrant and charming friend to many, why are his diaries so full of vitriol against judicial colleagues, especially Douglas and Black? An active Zionist, why did he so zealously enjoy the company of Boston Brahmins, whose snobbery he detested? Most…
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Herzl’s impactful The Jewish State, calling for a new Israel in 1896, adds 2014 Foreword by Jerold Auerbach
Few books have changed human history as did Theodor Herzl’s 1896 tract advocating the founding—even the inevitability—of a Jewish state. The new edition from Quid Pro Books (in paperback, hardcover, and digital formats) adds a 2014 Foreword by Jerold S. Auerbach, Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College and recognized as a leading scholar in the U.S. on Judaism in America as well as Israeli history. Auerbach’s extensive introduction brings home the importance and complexities of this historic work, of this visionary man. Founder of the World Zionist Organization and an Austrian intellectual, Herzl recognized that Jews would never be truly assimilated in any country they settled in, even over…
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The Landis Report to Kennedy on Regulatory Reform Joins Legal Legends Series, in Print and eBooks
James Landis’ hard-to-find but much-cited Report to Sen. John Kennedy’s committee on administrative regulation and commissions is now readily and affordably available as an ebook or new paperback. Sold out or “unavailable” with major booksellers despite its frequent use in academic literature, the Report finds its new home in the Legal Legends Series. In 1960, James M. Landis drafted the Report on Regulatory Agencies to the President-Elect and submitted it to President-elect (Sen.) John F. Kennedy, reexamining the federal regulatory commissions and administrative agencies’ structures and powers. He recommended such reforms as strengthening the commissions’ chairpersons and streamlining the agencies’ procedures. The Kennedy Administration subsequently adopted many of the recommendations.…
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Yale Law Journal Symposium on Modern Civil Rights Law & Theory Honors, or Challenges, Bruce Ackerman
“Symposium: The Meaning of the Civil Rights Revolution” (Vol. 123, No. 8, June 2014) is, in effect, a new and extensive book of contemporary thought on civil rights, written by today’s leading voices on constitutional law. In February 2014, Yale Law Journal held a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the new publication of Bruce Ackerman’s We the People: The Civil Rights Revolution (2014). Contributors’ essays reflected on the origins or status of the American civil rights project, using Ackerman’s book as a focal point or a foil as they saw fit. Those essays are collected here as June 2014, the final issue…
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University of Chicago Law Review, #2 of 2014, explores scientific evidence, regulatory agencies, habeas, and disability law
The second issue of 2014 features articles and essays from recognized scholars. Contents include these articles: • “Group to Individual (G2i) Inference in Scientific Expert Testimony,” David L. Faigman, John Monahan & Christopher Slobogin • “Game Theory and the Structure of Administrative Law,” Yehonatan Givati • “Habeas and the Roberts Court,” Aziz Z. Huq • “Cost-Benefit Analysis and Agency Independence,” Michael A. Livermore • “Accommodating Every Body,” Michael Ashley Stein, Anita Silvers, Bradley A. Areheart & Leslie Pickering Francis In addition, the issue includes a Review Essay by Sharon R. Krause entitled “The Liberalism of Love,” and these student Comments: • “Toward a Uniform Rule: The Collapse of the Civil-Criminal…
