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Lower Fairfield County's online book club
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Category: Book club choice

‘The Nine’ of the Supreme Court

July 15, 2009 at 4:40 pm by Monica Potts

thenine1

For our second book selection, we’ll be reading “The Nine”, Jeffrey Toobin’s inside look at the tail end of the Rehnquist court (no, not the short-lived series on ABC.) All of this is just in time to talk about what role Judge Sonia Sotormayor hopes to play on the court she might join. Not whether she’s a liberal or a conservative. More like, whether she’ll be a big-time Washington poker player, like Rehnquist was, or whether she’ll like to hire musicians for clerks, like Ginsberg does. We start July 17.

Monica Potts

Posted in Book club choice, Legal | Add a comment

Now I feel bad

July 13, 2009 at 1:13 pm by Monica Potts

Well, I finished “A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.” It didn’t end as badly, with all the heavy psychoanalysis, as it began. But it didn’t end well. The book didn’t really tell us anything about Rodriguez, it didn’t make a hard and fast case that he is a cheater, and it didn’t tell us why he’s so hot and cold as a player.

It didn’t really tell us much of anything. But that might speak more to the subject than to the writer, and the rush to get it out might speak more to the state of the publishing industry than anything else. Reading it cost us a contributor, but hopefully our eagerness to tear it apart, honestly and critically, didn’t lose us any readers.

The holes in the book’s assessment of him as a player and a person just made me want to read more about A-Rod, and now I want to see him in action. Maybe I’ll actually catch a Yankees game this year.

Reading the book also made us realize that Selena Roberts probably lives in Westport. Sorry, Selena.

We’re ready to close the book on the ill-fated match between Roberts and A-Rod. Then it’s on to “The Nine,” the 2007 book by New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin about the Supreme Court. Just in time for the Sonia Sotormayor confirmation hearings. Stay tuned.

Monica Potts

Posted in Book club choice, Book review, Sports | 2 Comments

For our first book selection, a Yankee

June 17, 2009 at 3:22 pm by Monica Potts

the-many-lives-of-alex-rodriguez

Starting June 22, we’ll be reading “A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez” by Selena Roberts, a former New York Times sports columnist and writer for Sports Illustrated. Dave Ruden, Elizabeth Kim and I will be discussing the meat of the book, and what it means for sports and journalism. Feel free to jump in at any time!


Monica Potts

Posted in Book club choice, Journalism, Sports | Add a comment
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AmericanLion

For November, I'll be reading American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year. We'll update our book club selection for December and January shortly.

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Meet the Authors:

  • Marilyn Ramos is a partner at the Stamford litigation law firm of Silver Golub & Teitell. She is a member of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association and the Connecticut Bar Association. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Fairfield County Bar Association and the Fairfield County Bar Foundation. She received her law degree from Pace University School of Law in 1989 and is a member of the Connecticut and New York bars. Prior to her career in law, she was a teacher with the Greenwich Public Schools and worked for the Stamford Human Rights Commission. Her views expressed on this blog are completely her own and do not represent those of Silver Golub & Teitell.
  • Roy J. Nirschel is president of Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. He grew up in Stamford and his father was a firefighter on the West Side. He received his bachelor's degree from Southern Connecticut State University and went on to receive a master's degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Miami. He has traveled around the world, visiting 35 countries, but said, "I can’t credit on the road with getting me on the road."