Book Reviews – by Kevin J Hamilton

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  • ‘Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum’

    ‘Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum’

    In ‘Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum,’ author/paleontologist Richard Fortey takes readers into the inner sanctum of one of the world’s most remarkable collections of natural-history specimens, tended to by a dedicated corps of eccentric scientists who investigate its mysteries.

    ‘Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum’

    by Richard Fortey

    Knopf, 352 pp., $27.50

    Millions of visitors pour through the doors of London’s Natural History Museum every year, and for good reason. The museum houses one of the most complete and remarkable collections of natural history in the world, collected (or donated) by generations of intrepid, pith-helmeted British explorers throughout the world.

    But few will have the opportunity to go behind the exhibit halls, to the cramped and dusty offices, filled with quirky scientists passionately devoting their lives to the study of our natural history. In “Dry Storeroom No. 1” Richard Fortey, an expert in trilobites (small extinct anthropoids with an extensive fossil record) who devoted his career to the museum, takes us on a fascinating tour through this unseen world of scientists with a focus on the most arcane details of the natural world.

    At the London museum, only a tiny fraction of the actual collections are on display. While casual visitors may be forgiven for mistaking the visible display cases for the entire museum, in fact the “real” museum is locked away behind the door, where millions of specimens are methodically described, named, cataloged and preserved.

    There are five working departments: paleontology, mineralogy, zoology, botany and entomology. In each, teams of devoted scientists collect, analyze, describe and preserve specimen examples, cataloging the stunning diversity of life on Earth, the vast bulk of which has not even been identified, much less named.

    Fortey points out, for example, that no less than one fifth of all species on Earth are beetles, yet only a half million species of beetles have been identified and named so far, leaving a staggering volume of life yet uncataloged, described or even named. (As J.B.S. Haldane famously remarked, whatever else one might say about God, he or she surely appears to have “an inordinate fondness for beetles.”) The museum’s insect collection alone has grown from 2.2 million specimens in 1912 to 80 million today.

    But as obscure as the thankless task of cataloging the variations of vole teeth, beetles or fungus gnats might seem, the fruits of that research are far from purely academic. Fortey notes that when Florida’s lucrative orange crop was threatened by an infestation of white flies from Trinidad, entomologists were able to identify a parasitic wasp with a special appetite for this specific white fly. The wasp was bred in vast numbers by the University of Florida, and the knowledge of this obscure branch of the insect world protected a critical resource from destruction.

    Similarly, a parasitic encyrtid wasp from Paraguay was used to destroy a mealy bug that threatened the cassava crop, a critical carbohydrate staple crop in much of the Third World. As Fortey dryly notes, “there is an inherent value in having people who ‘know their stuff.’ ” Knowledge of the Paraguay wasp undoubtedly saved thousands from starvation.

    The museum is, without doubt, a cathedral to Charles Darwin and his enormous contributions to the understanding of evolution and the natural world. Fortey dismisses as absurd the suggestion that evolution is a mere “theory” subject to a creationist critique: “So overwhelming is the evidence for evolution by descent that one could say that it is as secure as the fact that the Earth goes around the sun and not the other way.” But rather than waste the time or energy to debate the point, Fortey instead focuses his attention on the fossil record, which speaks for itself.

    Fortey brings to life not only the science but the quirky scientists, their midnight trysts (who knew?) and personal quirks. Peter Whitehead, the museum’s specialist in clupeoid fish (including herring and anchovies), not only published the encyclopedic 600-page “Clupeoid Fishes of the World” but was infamous for his affairs with younger female staff members. He commuted to the museum every day from Oxford and “always claimed to be able to fix up a date with any attractive waitress by the time he reached Paddington Station.”



    Curiously, Whitehead discovered a lost Mozart manuscript while searching for a 16th-century work on Brazilian herring. As Fortey notes, “it is surprising where the pursuit of herrings can lead.” Whitehead left the museum in the early 1990s and vanished in Mexico; when his wife tried to search his office for incriminating evidence of his affairs, she found herself locked out by the museum staff.

    Fortey compares the scientists to the object of their study – noting his own increasing resemblance of a tribolite as he gained weight, or how fellow scientist Gordon Corbett (a small-mammal expert) had a hesitant manner and nervous way of speaking, resembling small voles, who pause momentarily, whiskers twitching. The author balances academic rigor with entertaining detail – with an ample measure of dry British wit – along with a capable working history of the stewardship of the British museum system.

    The London Natural History Museum, like every other modern institution, has undergone significant changes in the modern era. No longer a bastion of civil servants with an untouchable budget, a more modern administration has changed the culture of the museum to be more consumer friendly; but its rich legacy remains an endowment and critical resource in understanding the world around us.

  • ‘Claim of Privilege’: Trail of ‘state secrets’ followed like an absorbing mystery

    ‘Claim of Privilege’: Trail of ‘state secrets’ followed like an absorbing mystery

    ‘Claim of Privilege,’ a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Barry Siegel, chronicles the story of a fatal 1948 Georgia plane crash; the legal battle of the families of the dead to get the truth about its cause; and how their fight has affected the Bush administration’s efforts to cloak its ‘war on terror’ strategies in secrecy.

    ‘Claim of Privilege: A Mysterious Plane Crash, a Landmark Supreme Court Case, and the Rise of State Secrets’

    by Barry Siegel

    Harper, 384 pp., $25.95

    On Oct. 6, 1948, an Air Force B-29 bomber crashed in a rural field in Waycross, Ga., after suffering a catastrophic engine fire. The plane was loaded with secret navigational equipment, and carried not only an Air Force crew, but three civilian engineers. Only four crew members survived the crash; all of the civilian engineers died.

    Their widows filed a lawsuit against the government and sought copies of the Air Force accident investigation report to support their claim. The government, however, refused to disclose it, claiming it would reveal “state secrets” and that producing it would damage “national security.”

    Sound familiar? It should. This was the landmark case, U.S. v. Reynolds, that established the state-secret doctrine in the Supreme Court that has been invoked with increasing frequency by the Bush administration to cloak its activities in the “war on terror.”

    The government’s argument was rejected by the trial court, which insisted that the government submit the report for examination by the court. But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision, holding that the government could unilaterally withhold relevant material, without any court inspection, upon the assertion of the “state secret” doctrine.

    Ironically, as it turned out, the Reynolds case itself never did involve anything even remotely resembling “state secrets.” When the accident report was declassified in the 1990s, all it contained was a dry summary of glaring negligence: engine maintenance orders (designed to prevent the fire) that had been ignored, negligent aircraft operation by the pilots, and a failure even to train the civilians on escape procedures or parachute operation.

    In early 2000, Judy Palya Loether, whose father had died in the crash, stumbled upon a copy of the declassified Air Force report on the Waycross accident. Reviewing it, she was stunned to discover not only the government negligence, but the false assertion of a “state secret.” Outraged, she searched out Susan Brauner, who – like Loether – lost her father in the crash, and an elderly Patricia Reynolds, who lost her husband.

    In “Claim of Privilege,” Barry Siegel tells the story of the effort to rectify the misleading assertion of the state-secret privilege. Siegel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, unwinds the story like a mystery novel, with vivid writing that deftly illuminates the legal principles without unnecessary legal jargon.

    Unfortunately, by the time their lawsuit was filed, national security concerns had again reached fever pitch in the wake of 9/11, and challenges to the government’s national-security claims were no more welcome than at the height of the Cold War, when the Reynolds case was decided. The lawsuit to reopen the case was rejected by the trial court and a three-judge Court of Appeals panel that included the soon-to-be-elevated Judge Samuel Alito.

    But on another level, the lawsuit achieved a larger goal by revealing the frivolous “national security” claim upon which Reynolds was based. As Seigel notes, “they had never aimed to repeal Reynolds or attack the whole edifice of national security law. They’d wanted only to call out the abuse of trust. … In so doing, they had changed the terms of the argument. Now when government lawyers waved the Reynolds flag, judges had to consider its genesis.”

    It’s ironic that, at the very time when judicial independence is most needed – at the height of public hysteria, in times of war, and when the nation is challenged with vicious terrorist attacks – our courts appear to fail us most regularly, authorizing Japanese internment during World War II, for example, or condoning overzealous government secrecy during the Cold War (as in Reynolds).

    But then, the real guardians of constitutional liberty are not the courts, but vigilant American citizens willing to stand up to challenge their own government. These surviving family members may not have won their day in court, but surely made a larger point and one by far more valuable.

  • New side to John Grisham: storytelling of substance

    New side to John Grisham: storytelling of substance

    ‘The Appeal’

    by John Grisham

    Doubleday, 368 pp., $27.95

    Few people read John Grisham novels for literary depth, lyrical writing or passionate prose. Grisham, indeed, is known for his powerhouse stories, thundering along at breakneck speed without much of a passing thought to character development, thoughtful writing or even colorful prose.

    Grisham’s new novel, “The Appeal,” is strikingly different. Grisham appears to be bent on not only telling an entertaining tale, but confronting a serious issue to boot. Set in rural Mississippi, the novel centers on a small town devastated by pollution from Krane Chemical Co., which polluted the town’s water supply for years before it pulled up stakes and moved its facilities to Mexico. With a population suffering from cancer at 12 times the national rate, the town of Bowmore had seen more than its fair share of death and suffering.

    The novel opens with the jury delivering a stunning verdict against Krane, including $41 million in punitive damages. The verdict is pure vindication for the small-town husband-and-wife lawyer team of Wes and Marygrace Payton, who have sacrificed everything to pursue the lawsuit. The chemical company, however, is owned by Wall Street financier Carl Trudeau, who is outraged at the verdict and has no intention of paying even a dime. Instead, after berating his raft of well-heeled corporate lawyers for losing the case, he appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

    The only problem is that the state court is split, 5-4, with the conservative justices narrowly outvoted by a more liberal majority. With a $41 million verdict at risk, Trudeau is not taking any chances on mere legal advocacy to protect his interests. Instead, Trudeau recruits Ron Fisk, a well-groomed young man with a picture-perfect family, no discernible baggage and a strong pro-business bent to run against Court Justice Sheila McCarthy.

    Trudeau pours millions of dollars into the race, coordinated by a slick organization of political operatives, pollsters, and advertising consultants, all designed to vilify Justice McCarthy as a wildly “liberal” justice bent on protecting criminals, promoting gay marriage, and restricting gun ownership. Sound familiar? With a carefully calibrated campaign, the Justice is buried under a virtual avalanche of televisions ads, radio spots and campaign literature. By the end of the campaign, even Fisk is left wondering who is funding the campaign and, more importantly, why. And the verdict on the appeal? Well, that’s best left for the last few pages of the novel.

    The novel is something of a departure for Grisham. Unlike so many of his prior novels, this one seems pointedly designed to address a serious issue rather than simply to entertain with implausible plot twists.

    Instead, Grisham confronts in stark relief the dangers of electing judges in an era of big-money politics. It is a timely issue and a critical problem facing every state where judges and justices are elected. Judicial races rarely are the focus of a great deal of voter attention and thus are easily manipulated. The justices themselves are rather severely limited in what they can say, how much time or effort they can expend to defend themselves and their decisions, or on their own campaigns. The combination makes them uniquely vulnerable to organized assault by dedicated interest groups, with predictable results, even in states like Washington.

    Grisham illustrates the dangers of such a system with a clever story and thoughtful plot. Of course, much of what makes Grisham’s writing so predictable remains – the bad guys are stereotyped to the point of absurdity. The good guys (Wes and Marygrace, of course) are saintly to the point of straining credulity. Couldn’t they have just one weakness, character flaw or demon to wrestle with? And for most of the book, things unfold just about how you expect them to, when you expect them to and with all too predictable results. But not entirely and that’s what makes this novel different and worth reading.

    In the end, Grisham closes with a scene designed to stay with the reader, and to raise the question whether electing judges is, all things considered in this day and age, an approach worth reconsidering. That question is worth the price of the book.

  • A French connection built from reading, riding, researching

    A French connection built from reading, riding, researching

    ‘The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War’

    by Graham Robb

    Norton, 454 pp., $27.95

    Most of us have a reasonably clear sense of France and its history. Invaded by the Romans and ruled by a series of royal families, France was rocked by a bloody Revolution, ruled by an emperor named Napoleon and made home to the Eiffel Tower, ultimately becoming the classic tourist destination (before the Euro made it too expensive to visit). But this modern conception of France is not only incomplete, but fundamentally misconceived.

    Almost everything that makes France “French” is a more or less modern invention. French as a language, for starters, was not widely spoken throughout France itself until well after the French Revolution. Instead, peasants throughout the countryside spoke a hodgepodge of differing languages and dialects. Even in the late 1700s, a traveler leaving the city limits of Paris typically required a translator to be understood and, farther south, would have difficulty even identifying the language he or she was hearing. Indeed, just over 100 years ago, French was a foreign language to nearly 80 percent of the population.

    Graham Robb, a historian and author of several acclaimed biographies, provides a ground-level historical geography of France from the Revolution through the First World War. An avid bicycle rider, Robb researched the book by riding more than 14,000 miles throughout France and spending four years in the library. What he discovered was how little of what one might consider “France” existed only a couple of centuries ago.

    Indeed, authorities didn’t even attempt to map the country until the mid-18th century. Even then, the cartographers encountered stiff hostility from villagers suspicious of “foreigners” with strange devices.

    Large parts of France weren’t even part of the country until relatively recently. Brittany, for example, didn’t become part of France until 1532, when Queen Anne of Brittany married into the Royal family and brought the Celtic province as her dowry. France, similarly, didn’t acquire Alsace and Lorraine until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Nice and Savoy didn’t become part of France until 1860. As Robb notes, “the propaganda of French national unity has been broadcast continuously since the Revolution, and it takes a while to notice that the tribal divisions of France were almost totally unrelated to administrative boundaries.”

    The Revolution, together with the introduction of modern transportation and communication systems, brought enormous pressures to bear on provincial culture. In the provinces, being “patriotic” or “educated” often meant denigrating one’s own culture, language and customs.

    Little of what once existed survives to this day. On the marsh lands of southwest France, shepherds on 10-foot stilts once covered dozens of miles of heath in a day. Deserts covered portions of the interior. Seasonal migrations of masons and other skilled workers traveled the footpaths toward Paris and employment. Highly trained dogs in the north smuggled goods to evade taxes.

    With much of the country transformed by modern agriculture, the French language imposed from above and modern transportation leaving villages to collapse into neglect, many of the curiosities of ancient France simply vanished into the slipstream of history.

    Robb’s book offers a glimpse into that forgotten past, from evidence found at bike level in obscure corners of the country most of us are unlikely to visit. And for that meticulous research, he deserves a standing ovation. He could, however, have benefited greatly from a strong editor with an ample supply of red pencils, as the book suffers from occasional numbing detail, arcane asides and a less-than-transparent organization. But for those in search of a remembrance of things past, to paraphrase Proust, this is a priceless glimpse into history.

  • ‘Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History’

    ‘Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History’

    ‘Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History’

    by Morton Satin

    Prometheus Books, 262 pp., $24

    Food provides far more than nourishment. It defines culture, builds empires, feeds armies and, with equal potency, can destroy all that it built. Poisoned or spoiled food has profoundly influenced the course of human history. From the Peloponnesian War (likely lost by Athens at least in part as a result of contaminated or spoiled cereal stocks) to the death of Beethoven (lead poisoning), food poisoning has changed history in significant and memorable ways.

    In “Death In The Pot,” Morton Satin, a molecular biologist and technical director at the Salt Institute, provides an interesting and quirky survey of the baneful impact of adulterated food supplies on history. Illnesses from contaminated foods through the middle ages were typically attributed to heavenly retribution for Earthly misconduct or blasphemy. In fact, however, the more likely cause was poorly maintained food supplies.

    Hallucinogenic symptoms of moldy grain in early American colonies were considered by Puritan settlers to be signs of witchcraft. Even today, E. coli outbreaks make the most innocent-looking hamburger seem like a lurking menace, and once seemingly healthy seafood can in fact be loaded with food dye or threatening levels of mercury. It’s a sad day when the “fish on Friday” rule requires a blood test for toxicity.

    Satin’s effort could have provided a springboard for a thoughtful survey of food safety throughout history, or perhaps proposals to avoid threats to the food supply, topics with urgent relevance to our own times. Unfortunately, though, Satin’s work fails to live up to its promise. It is poorly written, often stitching together short essays on discreet topics with abrupt transitions. But more fundamentally, much of the research seems incomplete or inconclusive.

    Of course, forensic analysis hundreds, or thousands, of years after the fact must necessarily depend on a certain degree of speculation. But even with respect to more recent events (E. coli outbreaks, or intentional food contamination in the 1970s), Satin seems content to rely on information that is readily available rather than engage in any sort of serious analysis. As food for thought, “Death In The Pot” is meager gruel.

  • U.S. Supreme Court: A history of the hows and whys

    U.S. Supreme Court: A history of the hows and whys




    Republicans have won five of the past seven presidential elections, a conservative tide that swept through the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. Yet until recently the Supreme Court remained curiously centrist, with even seemingly conservative nominees yielding to more moderate positions.

    In “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court” (Doubleday, 369 pp., $27.95), CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin provides a history of the modern Supreme Court and the impact of its changing composition. Based on interviews with the justices, the book provides a fascinating inside look at the most secretive branch of government. Toobin writes beautifully, and the book is impossible to put down.

    Toobin steps through the confirmation battles of the 1980s and 1990s, from Robert Bork’s failed nomination (as a result of his incendiary writings) to the soap-operalike confirmation hearings over Clarence Thomas. It seems almost quaint to remember a time when a nominee could be rejected for being too conservative.

    The most arresting portion of the book, however, is its discussion of the court’s infamous 5-4 intervention in the 2000 presidential election, in Bush v. Gore. The court’s veneer of political independence was stripped away by the ill-concealed enthusiasm with which the court intervened. Justice David Souter, who dissented, was so disgusted that he considered resigning. As Toobin writes, Souter viewed his colleagues’ actions as “so transparent, so crudely partisan that Souter thought he might not be able to serve with them any more.”

    The irony of the intervention is striking. Conservative activists long have insisted on restraint from federal interference with state power. Yet no area is more firmly committed to the states by the Constitution than the “time, place, and manner” of state and federal elections. Every state has a process for recounts, for determining voter intent, and, ultimately, for contesting the outcome. Disputed elections are not uncommon in history; federal intervention is.

    Yet that is precisely what the court did in Bush v. Gore, leading to widespread disrespect for the court and what Toobin and others, including many constitutional lawyers, have characterized as its hasty, poorly reasoned opinion. Toobin calls the decision “one of the lowest moments in the court’s history.”

    Washington state could have shown the way. The 2004 gubernatorial election was stunningly close, with Christine Gregoire edging out Dino Rossi by only 129 votes out of 2 million cast. Instead of federal intervention, Rossi’s election contest proceeded under state law, with a full trial after which the court definitively rejected Rossi’s challenge. (Full disclosure: I represented the Washington state Democrats in that trial).

    The Supreme Court’s intervention in the 2000 presidential election caused years of widespread questions over the legitimacy of the election . By contrast, after a full hearing on the 2004 gubernatorial election, Gregoire took office without the same sort of pervasive legitimacy questions .

    Toobin carefully chronicles the vacancies filled by President Bush in the past two years and the window those nominations have on the ascendant power of “movement conservatives.”

    From the outset of the Reagan revolution, steadfastly conservative lawyers formed the influential Federalist Society to promote conservative political values in the judiciary, including expansion of executive branch powers, relaxation of the separation between church and state, and intent to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. After watching “conservative” appointees such as David Souter and Anthony Kennedy turn centrist, these activists made sure they didn’t repeat the mistake.

    Indeed, the surprise nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers failed precisely because she was insufficiently conservative for the conservative elite. With John Roberts (who replaced Chief Justice William Rehnquist), whose name appeared in Federalist Society membership lists, and Samuel Alito (who replaced Justice Sandra Day O’Connor), a longtime Federalist Society member with proven conservative credentials, no such questions exist. And, as Toobin’s concluding chapters on the 2006-07 term note, they have delivered with a vengeance.

    Over the long run, America gets the Supreme Court it deserves. Having elected conservative administrations for 20 of the past 28 years, the only real surprise is how long it took for the court to definitively turn right.

  • Rendering judgment on an infamous trial in ‘Sacco & Vanzetti’

    Rendering judgment on an infamous trial in ‘Sacco & Vanzetti’

    ‘Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind’

    by Bruce Watson

    Viking, 448 pp., $25.95

    Few criminal trials in American history have left such a record of recrimination and finger-pointing as the infamous trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

    Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants, were charged with the murder of two payroll clerks on April 15, 1920, in Braintree, Mass. The brazen daylight murder took place only steps away from busy factories filled with hundreds of potential witnesses. The gunmen shot the clerks, collected the payroll cash, and then roared away in a large black sedan with white window drapes fluttering amid the billowing dust. Less than three weeks later, Sacco, an edge trimmer in a shoe factory, and Vanzetti, a fish peddler, were charged with the murders.

    Both were carrying fully loaded pistols when arrested and neither provided fully plausible explanations for what they were doing that evening. They were, admittedly, anarchists who supported a shadowy movement intent on destabilizing the United States. But the evidence against them was weak and the trial an embarrassment.

    Curiously, the trial occurred at a time with compelling similarities to the modern day. Then, as now, there was widespread fear of terrorism – and with good reason. Anarchists (we would call them “terrorists” today) regularly bombed public squares and subway stations.

    Similarly, like today, conservative hostility toward immigration was rising, leading Congress in 1924, with the support of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion, to slash immigration quotas. Although it seems nearly unimaginable now, the tide of anti-Italian fever was running high in America in the 1920s, with fears of Italian gangsters and uncontrolled violence convulsing the country.

    It is difficult to imagine a context less suited for a dispassionate, fair trial. And few would describe the resulting trial as either “dispassionate” or “fair.”

    In “Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind,” Bruce Watson does a terrific job of reviewing the historical record of the trial, drawing compelling portraits of the principals, their families, and partisans on both sides of the bitter controversy. Drawing on untapped legal archives, this is the first full-length study of the case in over 30 years. It was worth the wait.

    Judge Webster Thayer, a stern New England reactionary, presided over the trial with barely concealed hostility. Sacco and Vanzetti were defended by Fred Moore, a flamboyant California lawyer oblivious to his irritating effect on the judge.

    The defendants were convicted on July 14, 1921, but the case lingered for more than six years while appeals and pleas for clemency ran their course. As Justice William O. Douglas commented decades later, anyone reading the trial transcript would “have difficulty believing that the trial with which it deals took place in the United States.”

    After Thayer denied the defendants’ motion for a new trial, he commented to a friend at a Dartmouth football game, “Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day?”

    Tanks and Marines defended American embassies abroad as hundreds of thousands marched in protest in every major world capital. As Watson notes, the trial was freighted with much larger implications: “In the judgment of the world, one American city would stand for America itself, one court case for the universal dream of fairness, two men for all men staring into the naked face of power.”

    Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on Aug. 23, 1927. Over 100,000 people streamed through the funeral home after the execution to pay their respects.

    For 80 years, the acrimonious table-pounding debate has continued over the case. Watson’s careful study is unlikely to definitively settle that dispute, but does provide a welcome clear-eyed overview of one of the most disappointing chapters in American judicial history.

  • Judge Dwyer’s speeches bring legend to life

    Judge Dwyer’s speeches bring legend to life




    “Ipse Dixit: How the World Looks to a Federal Judge” by William L. Dwyer should be required reading for every new lawyer admitted to the Washington State Bar Association.

    Judge Dwyer was a legend both as a trial lawyer and as a federal judge in Seattle. He was appointed by President Reagan as a U.S. District Court judge. Although his appointment was delayed for more than a year over concerns raised by conservative senators, he won confirmation and served from 1987 to 2002. From major league baseball, to the timber wars over the spotted owl, to federal term limits, Judge Dwyer was at the center of many of the most important controversies of the past 30 years.

    In the months before his death in 2002, Judge Dwyer compiled this collection of speeches he delivered during his years as a federal judge and even wrote the preface for “Ipse Dixit” (University of Washington, 176 pp., $24). The title is Latin for “he himself said it,” typically used for unsupported assertions. He originally collected these materials for his grandchildren, and it was his widow, Vasiliki Dwyer, who brought them forward for publication. Like reading a long-delayed letter from an old friend, it’s a wistful experience to read the preface, followed by a series of thoughtful essays.

    The 15 speeches included in this volume span the years 1978-2002. Judge Dwyer addresses, with wit and insight, topics ranging from international law to lawyer professionalism, his self-effacing humor on vivid display throughout. Accepting an award in 1992 to the prestigious “Order of the Coif,” typically an honor bestowed on the brightest law students, he commented, “to those of the class of 1952 who made Order of the Coif the hard way, and who might think this award is unjust, I can only point out that you have had a handsome certificate on your wall for forty years in a spot where I have had to make do with an old photograph of a fishing trip.”

    Judge Dwyer was also an outstanding trial lawyer who took pride in his work and saw lawyers as an essential part of a democracy, critical to the preservation of liberty in a free society.

    His 1993 speech to the Federal Bar Association on ethics in the practice of law is a careful, logical call to the practical value of civility and the debasing effects of extremism in the courtroom. He called it one of the “basic truths” of law practice: “that the best rewards come to those who are not just capable but ethical.”

    Judge Dwyer’s long-standing ties to the Northwest and to Seattle are evident throughout the collection. His fond memories of hiking through the North Cascades and involvement in some of the most significant cases of the past 40 years – first as a lawyer and later as a judge – are sprinkled throughout the book.

    In 1998, Judge Dwyer took senior status, a form of semi-retirement for federal judges. In his speech to the Federal Bar Association that evening, he recalled his warm reception from the bar after he was (finally) confirmed, then observed: “Tonight’s greeting seems even warmer. I can only assume that the bar is even happier about my departure than it was about my arrival.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

    In 2002, only months before the judge died, his daughter Joanna delivered Judge Dwyer’s last speech, on his behalf, on the value of pro bono legal work for the poor – legal services provided free of charge to those without the means to pay. It’s a fitting end piece for the collection, touching not only on the role of legal services in the cause of justice but also on the critical contributions of lawyers, in big firms and small, to filling that need.

    Meade Emory, a University of Washington law professor, saw the project through to completion, contributing explanatory end notes, a warm remembrance in the foreword, and an interesting compilation of articles written by and about Judge Dwyer. Stimson Bullitt contributed a foreword for his close friend.

    Inspiring, thoughtful and beautiful, this collection of essays is a gem.

  • A home in Rome: Travel memoir is good enough to eat

    A home in Rome: Travel memoir is good enough to eat


    “Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World”

    Anthony Doerr

    Scribner, 224 pp., $24)

    Anthony Doerr is a lucky man. Returning from the Boise hospital where Shauna, his wife, had just given birth to twin boys, he opens the mail to find that he has won a prestigious award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters providing him with an apartment in Rome for a year, a studio in which to write anything he wishes, and a living stipend to help pay for it all.

    Most people would consider dealing with newborn twins to be more than enough of a challenge for a year. Moving to a foreign country, even one as warm, familiar and welcoming to young families as Italy, would be a daunting challenge all by itself. To move to a foreign country with infant twins would strike most as nearly suicidal.

    But Doerr and his young family do exactly that, and “Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World” (Scribner, 224 pp., $24) is his memoir of his year abroad, wandering through Rome’s vibrant streets and learning doorpost-by-doorpost Italian language, history and culture. Doerr, a Boise author who has received numerous awards for his writing, including the O. Henry Prize (twice) and the Outstanding Book of 2003 Award from the American Library Foundation, is the author of “The Shell Collector” and “About Grace.”

    Doerr’s writing is warm, colorful and flowing, and his day-by-day memoir brings the essence of Rome alive. Those incredible tomatoes, buttery yet simple sauces, freshly baked focaccia bread, and the smell of roasting pork waft through the pages of this book. To anyone who has spent time in Italy with young children, it only takes a few chapters to bring back to life every smiling little old Italian woman insisting in pinching cheeks and pronouncing “belissima!” To those who have never visited, the book is an introduction to the enrapturing power of Italian food, people and culture.

    Of course, travel memoirs cram most bookstore shelves, stacked in drifts as the summer months approach. “A Year in Provence” has spawned a virtual industry of my-year-abroad travelogues. It doesn’t take long to tire of the entire self-serving genre.

    But this thin volume skirts the pitfalls that plague so many similar volumes. Doerr’s writing, for one, is rich, vivid and almost worth the effort regardless of the topic. Unlike others who spend weeks, or even months, visiting Italy and return sprinkling their language with Italian, and imagining themselves part Italian, Doerr has no such pretensions. “I know nothing. I lived in Rome four seasons. I never made it through the gates between myself and the Italians. I cannot claim to have become, in even the smallest manner, Roman.” Yet he perceptively describes the cultural differences, at once familiar, fascinating and yet unknowable for most Americans, and the astonishingly transformative power of living abroad and outside of the blaring 24/7 media whirlwind that dominates modern American life.

    Doerr, like most new parents, is overwrought about the burdens of new parenthood, and it’s difficult to avoid rolling one’s eyes at his overly dramatic accounts of colic, sleepless nights and crying babies. Similarly, he exaggerates the challenges of navigating an Italian grocery store or communicating everyday needs without speaking Italian. Yes, it can be a challenge, but Rome is hardly a small town, Italian food and culture are hardly unknown to Americans, and English is, like a slow-moving plague, common throughout most of Italy and certainly throughout Rome.

    But the sheer warmth and obvious sincerity of Doerr’s writing is enough to overcome these minor obstacles. This book, like a long trip through a warm Italian night, is richly rewarding and well worth the effort.

  • ‘Out of Africa’ and into his own biography

    ‘Out of Africa’ and into his own biography

    ‘Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton’

    by Sara Wheeler

    Random House, 292 pp., $27.95

    Denys Finch Hatton lived life on his own terms. Tall and handsome, with a devilishly crooked smile, he was famously irresistible to women and equally unable to commit to any of them. Born into money and the English aristocracy, he refused to conform and instead fled England for the then-largely untracked British East Africa (now Kenya).

    His exploits in the African bush would likely have long ago faded into obscurity but for his good fortune to have had affairs with two much more interesting women who, as it turns out, were great writers and chose to immortalize him in “Out of Africa” (Karen Blixen, under the pen name Isak Dinesen) and “West with the Night” (Beryl Markham).

    In “Too Close to the Sun,” British author Sara Wheeler laboriously details Finch Hatton’s life and times. He attended Eaton and Oxford, but without enthusiasm (except for golf) and left behind a decidedly mediocre academic record. Rather than conform to the demands of his position or the expectations of British society, he fled instead to British East Africa. He invested in various farming enterprises and devoted most of his time to exploring the Kenyan jungle, ultimately serving as a jungle guide for a variety of wealthy clients.

    Finch Hatton secured his place in history through his relationships with Blixen and Markham. Blixen, divorced from an unfaithful spouse, struggled to establish a coffee plantation in the Kenyan bush, “at the foot of the Ngong Hills” as she famously described it in “Out of Africa.” Although Finch Hatton lived with her, he simultaneously had a romantic relationship with Markham, a much younger woman who had been raised on the African plains by her father. Curiously, both women produced critically acclaimed autobiographies featuring, in part, their liaisons with Finch Hatton.

    Blixen’s coffee plantation finally failed in 1931, forcing her to leave her cherished Africa. Shortly before Blixen’s tormented departure, Finch Hatton died in a fiery small plane crash in the African bush. Blixen returned to her native Denmark brokenhearted and poured her heart into her writing, producing not only “Out of Africa” but a variety of short stories, including “Babette’s Feast.” She was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

    It is difficult to imagine anyone working up the enthusiasm to devote a full-length biography to Finch Hatton had he not already been featured in two outstanding autobiographies, not to mention a Hollywood movie. But, of course, writing a biography with that sort of competition would be difficult for even the best of writers.

    Wheeler’s writing, unfortunately, has all the romance, thrill and excitement of a high-school chemistry textbook. Worse, the book is littered with elliptical historical references, long chapters on Finch Hatton’s genealogy, and random footnotes to insignificant historical controversies over events in his life.

    This nearly impenetrable thicket of prose might be worth it if either the subject was worth the effort or the writing even remotely approached the lyricism of either of Finch Hatton’s lovers’ autobiographies. The book, unfortunately, fails on both accounts.