A friend of mine likens the publication of a book to the birth of a child, a peak experience that yields powerful feelings. I’ve yet to hold my newest baby, but last night I noticed that Amazon now lists it. Taking Back the Courts can be pre-ordered; it is set for release later this week.
I blasted a note about it all on Twitter last night, and have received several nice notes, both public and private. There is a strange sort of helplessness that accompanies the launch of a book. It feels less like the birth of a child than sending a loved one off to school for the very first time. You know she will make friends, but the world, you know, is not a welcoming place. The push and shove of every market, and the schoolyard is but a marketplace for affection, yields friend and foe. I dare say I am not everyone’s cup of tea; nor do I aspire to be.
Regular readers of this blog won’t be surprised by the book. I think the courts are diseased, that justice is less an aspiration than a mirage, forever present but rarely within reach of the workaday lawyer trudging off to court, to the trenches, each day.
I pinned my ears back and had a little fun in the book, a couple hundred pages of fun, to be exact. I hope you will read it.
One advance reviewer issued a challenge. "What would you change in the courts," he asked. I told him. "There’s your next book," he said. And so I spend the better part of the little time I have to write scratching away at this new manuscript, now some 30,000 words and growing. Trying to learn to write books late in life is chastening, especially after acquiring all the bed habits of a columnist, editorial writer and blogger – immediacy is a hard high to shake. But a kind editor urges me on, reminding me that perfection, like justice, is a goal, but that the press of events requires seeing things through, even if they are less than perfect.
Here’s a link to the first chapter of Taking Back the Courts, together with kind words from men who need no introduction by me. http://tinyurl.com/5ujof2f
Abbe Hoffman once entitled a book of his "Steal This Book." I almost did steal one as a kid. My goals are more modest. I am hoping you will buy mine.
Note: The jeers and cheers have begun. Thanks to all for reading. Friends, like enemies, help define one's place in a world of noise.