The One with The Associate

182. Title & Author: The Associate by John Grisham (434 pages)

Genre: Fiction—Thriller

Completed: 26 April 2011

Summary & Review:

Kyle McAvoy, a young Yale law student is confronted by a group of mysterious men who know of a terrible secret from his past. Using this information they blackmail Kyle into accepting a job at a top New York law firm to funnel this cadre secrets about an incredibly important lawsuit. With the help of his old college roommates and a fellow New York City lawyer, Kyle tries to figure out some way to escape with his life.

My dad has very mixed feelings about Grisham. He says that about every other book of Grisham’s is worth reading, and I tend to agree. This book was unfortunately one of the ones not worth reading. When compared to some of Grisham’s more gripping novels, such as The Broker or The Partner, this one fell a bit flat. The plot was fairly thin and the majority of the pages, I’d say about 65-70%, were devoted to describing the life of a young associate in a big-time law firm. Grisham droned on and on about “hundred hour work weeks” and “waking up at 5:00 am” and “exhaustion” and “tedium,” etc., etc., etc. It was almost as if he was trying to make us feel sorry for these poor, way over paid lawyers. Not happening.

Rating: 5.5

The One with Hard America, Soft America

181. Title & Author: Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation’s Future by Michael Barone (162 pages)

Genre: Nonfiction—Philosophy & Politics

Completed: 13 April 2011

Summary & Review:

Conservative pundit Michael Barone examines the various trends of Hardening and Softening that took place in America during the twentieth century. America at the dawn of the century was a Hard place, and in Barone’s estimation, perhaps excessively so. Then with the rise of Big Government, Big Labor, and Big Business, areas of Softness began to emerge. Softness arose in criminal justice, welfare, the military, education, and business. In turn, Barone examines what this softness did to these various areas of American life and shows that attempting to create a Soft America was in no one’s best interest. A Hard America, where there is competition, self-governance, personal responsibility, and consequences to actions is vital, innovative, prosperous, and simply a better country in which to live.

I really liked the concept of this book. An examination of what certain policies do to individuals and society in general is important to helping us understand what works and what doesn't. Barone, however, did not present this analysis with much depth. He rarely cited figures or specifics, but rather examined broad trends and often was not very emphatic about the consequences of Softening or the benefits of Hardening. Maybe Charles Murray will pick up this topic and give it a little more heft.

In the end though, I agree with Barone’s conclusion: “A Harder America, it turns out, is a safer, friendlier, more helpful and self-disciplined society. The advocates of Softness wanted to make things easier on ordinary people, to save them from hardship, and to some extent they did. But excessive softness, in the private or the public sector, turns out to create habits of the heart which make the economy less productive and creative and life nastier and more brutish.”

Rating: 7.0

The One with The Notebook

180. Title & Author: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (214 pages)

Genre: Fiction—Romance

Completed: 5 April 2011

Summary & Review:

Noah, an elderly man living in a nursing home, reads a tattered notebook to his wife every day. The notebook holds the story of their love—their summer romance as teenagers, their separation, and then finally their reunion after more than a decade apart. More than just a tale of two people’s romance, however, the story seems to contain hidden power. As Noah reads the story to Allie, it brings his wife back from the clutches of her Alzheimer’s disease which has robbed her of her memory.

This was Nicholas Sparks’ first novel and I think it showed. Every time he would have the characters express their feelings, either in dialogue or letters, it was done in the most clichéd, trite terms. Throughout the book, Sparks spoke of poetry ad nauseam, yet his words were paradoxically completely un-poetic.

It most cases the old truism stands, i.e. that the book is better than the movie. With The Notebook, however, the movie was much better than the literary tale. Sparks’ novel was slow in pace, convoluted in structure, and overwrought throughout.

Rating: 4.0

The One with Henri Matisse

179. Title & Author: Henri Matisse by Volkmar Essers (95 pages)

Genre: Nonfiction—Art History

Completed: 1 April 2011

Summary & Review:

The life and art of Henri Matisse are chronicled alongside numerous color illustrations of many of his paintings. Also, a timeline of the major events of Mattise’s life is included at the end.

While I would never claim to be particularly fond of much modern and contemporary art—the baroque is my favorite period—I have always somewhat liked Matisse, much more so than artists like Kandinsky or Mondrian who were wholly abstract in their art. I guess to me, abstract art is more decoration, not something I can ponder and stare at for lengthy periods of time. Thus, since Matisse retained representation in his art, albeit highly stylized later in his life, I have typically found his art to be more interesting than many of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, the accompanying text in this volume was dry and lifeless.

Rating: 5.5