Law Books

As a first year law student, I purchased this book before the start of my semester hoping to have a little insight into what was about to come. The book is basic, informative and I find myself referring to it when we cover some less than crystal-clear topics in class. A great purchase for anyone even the least bit interested in how our legal sytem (should) work!

This book is a great general overview of our legal system, and law in general. He covers all aspects of law in an easy to read format - this book should be useful for anyone considering a law degree.

Law 101 is nothing if not informative about our legal system and its roots in English Common Law, but it despite the author's best efforts, it reads like a reference book. The average person on the street would probably not be able to absorb much, despite what the blurbs on the jacket say, but it may be a good primer for potential law students.

The book basically does what it claims it's going to do. It gives you a clear and relatively simple overview of the American legal system. Furthermore, it constantly uses Supreme Court cases as a way of showing how certain laws were created and constantly changed over time as standards changed.

The writer doesn't get preachy or starts to discuss complicated theories and philosophies about law. He simply educates the reader on practical matters of our legal system. Some examples include how a typical case reaches the courtroom, the different kind of jobs attorneys and lawyers have, and how to write a legitimate will that will be recognized by law.

Overall, it's a great book for anyone that might be interested in Law School in the future or just someone that wants to be knowledgeable about the basic concepts of law.

For those with an interest in learning what the law is all about, this is a really great place to start. As others have mentioned, it will be an excellent choice for those who are contemplating law school or paralegal studies. The author does a great job of condensing important information on a variety of different areas within the law, and making them interesting by putting the material into context with everyday life. Since the author wants to make the point that the law is something that can be accessible and understood by all, the writing is in a user-friendly and very readable style. This book is worthwhile and enjoyable reading for anyone with even the slightest interest in American law.

this is a very well written and easy to read.it has been very helpful for me in implimenting my childrens IEP's.

Special Education Law is an excellent resource for teachers and parents. It is well organized, and written to be understandable and useful. I will definitely order other material by the same author.

I found this book very helpful and consider it a necessity for anyone dealing with the special education system.

Every teacher should have a copy of this book! This gives an overview of what you need to know in school today, about special education.

Now in a newly updated and significantly expanded second edition, "Wrightslaw: Special Education Law" provides parents, educators, child service advocates, and family attorneys with a clear and superbly organized introduction to the federal laws affecting the education of children with disabilities. An invaluable guide to special education rights and responsibilities, co-authors Pete Wright (who has represented children with disabilities for more than 30 years including appearing before the U. S. Supreme Court in 'Florence County School District IV v. Shannon Carter, 510 U.S. 7 - 1993 in which he won a landmark victory for all children with disabilities) and Pam Wright (a psychotherapist who has worked with children since the 1970s and is the Editor of 'The Special ed Advocate' newsletter), "Wrightslaw: Special Education Law" addresses the issues of a child's right to a free and appropriate education; individualized education programs, IEP teams, transition and progress; evaluations, re-evaluations, consent and independent educational evaluations; eligibility and placement decisions; least restrictive environment, mainstreaming and inclusion; research based instruction, discrepancy formulas and response to intervention; discipline, suspensions and expulsions; safeguards; mediation, confidentiality, new procedures and timelines for due process hearings. A critically important addition to school district and community library Educational Laws & Guidelines reference shelves, "Wrightslaw: Special Education Law" should be considered 'must reading' for anyone (but most especially by parents and school authorities) charged with the responsibility for educating a disabled child regardless of the nature or degree of the disability.

It was written decades ago, inspired on a famous trial that had taken place years earlier, yet Inherit the Wind feels as powerful and relevant today as, I imagine, did when it first opened on Broadway. That's a testament to the fantastic writing, of course, but unfortunately also shows how little we've learned since then.

Based upon the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, TN, Inherit the Wind looks at the trial as a battle over the suppression of ideas that is reminiscent of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. However, it also includes some interesting thoughts reagarding fundamentalist interpretations of the bible. Some of these were taken from the actual testimony from the trial, although the book does take some liberties with history in order to make its point. Its themes are universal and the book/play definitely brings up some ideas that are still worthy of consideration today.

This script of a play, inspired by the Scopes trial, captivated my attention. It hightlights the zealous bigotry of those who refuse to question their own beliefs while being centered around figures who dared to dabble with a new theory concerning the origins of life.

In a world that is still divided over the wide range dilemma of religion, Inherit the Wind is brilliant in the manner where it analyzes its complexity. The premise is relatively simple. Based on the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1945, the plot charges forward when a young teacher, Cates, breaks a local rule banning the teaching of evolution in the classroom. He is arrested, and placed on trial within a not-so-welcoming town. Yet the real drama takes center stage when the trial moves beyond violating a local rule. Matthew Harrison, the national fundamentalist hero, views this trial as an opportunity to gain popularity across fundamentalist Christianity and decides to take on the case. His staunch orthodox is intensely rivaled by Henry Drummond, the avid atheist set on transforming the small town's approach to the bible and opposing view points. The novel's authors, Lawrence and Lee, take great care to expand the issue over the theory evolution to a broader context of the various forms of biblical interpretation. Lawrence and Lee bring up dilemmas such as whether or not the bible and religion itself have the capacity to correlate. The idea that the authors expanded the issue of evolution to a higher complexity focusing on biblical interpretation is in my opinion the greatest portion of the play, and deserves the reader's attention throughout.

Yet, while the variety of opinions were equally considered in the plot, they aren't the only portions that add to the novel's complexity and beauty. The famous political leaders themselves, Harrison and Drummond, are given traits that give justice to the men that they were based on. William Jennings Bryan, Harrison's character, was known to the public in the same form that Harrison was portrayed. Darrow, represented by Drummond, was a passionate atheist concerned for the law. The authors made it a point to stay true to the politicians' personas while at the same time steering the play away from a typical historical representation.

While in my opinion, the play had a liberal bias, it in no way went out to outright ridicule a conservative interpretation. What it did instead was demand that the general public remain open minded. It argues that people of all religious and political ideologies come together and discuss differences that in no way impede others from freely practicing what they believe. This in combination with the criticisms of our nation's justice system garner it the raves it deserves.

Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews. My review of "Inherit the Wind" is concise and to the point. Oh, I get it. That person is a fanatic, and he or she doesn't like that state of mind exposed.

This explosive drama is a re-enactment of one of the twentieth century's greatest courtroom dramas--the 1925 Scopes Trail. The collision of William Jennings Bryan (a religious fundamentalist) and Clarence Darrow (an agnostic) is wonderfully enacted. Scopes, a high-school teacher, was put on trail for teaching evolution.

The preacher's daughter is in love with Scopes, and the sparks fly over the conflict. The preacher's religious fanaticism threatens to destroy his own family. Thus, the line from Proverbs 11:29: "He that troubleth his own house Shall inherit the wind."

I would also highly recommend Eric Hoffer's classic little book, "The True Believer." A must for educated readers.

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

The previous review by navylady is of the 3rd edition of this book, and the reviewer makes some very good points about that edition. However, it should not be included here as a review of the 4th edition because all of her gripes about the text are limited to the 3rd edition and these issues are not present in the 4th edition of this text. I teach Introduction to Policing at the university level and I use this book. After looking at many other policing textbooks, I feel this is the most comprehensive and inclusive of all of them. It is a great text for any intro level policing class.

This book is unorganized, out-of-date, too focused on New York City, and on every other page promotes the authors and their careers...On page 7 they are telling you how much has changed with the computer age, and the internet, and one of the authors tells you he went to grade school and they used quill pens and fountain jars...okay, I didn't need to know that. It was so annoying that by page 14, I was going to submit to them a list of improvements, but it would have been EXTENSIVE! From there on just gritted my teeth and got through it...Good luck! You'll be really tired of the references to the Trade City Bombing, and NYC in general, by the end of it!

I highly recommend the reading of this impressive book. It is able to embrace almost all of the mathematical background a serious theoretical physicist should have...and it does so in a both deeply and understandable fashion. It is suitable for anyone interested in knowing why something arising from tbe human mind is capable to describe the Universe. This book may be suplemmented by Geometry, Topology and Physics, Second Edition (Graduate Student Series in Physics), by Mikio Nakahara, a reading recommended for those who may want to go even deeper into the mathematics-physics relationship.

This book is perfect for where I'm at right now, which is at an advanced undergraduate level of studying physics. It covers pretty close to all of the ideas in physics that are out there right now, and most of the major areas of mathematics that are involved in explaining these physical theories. As such, it makes a great review of what I've encountered so far, and gives the clearest exposition I've yet encountered for many of the advanced ideas that I've only thus far encountered tangentially. Even for "basic" ideas, Penrose often chooses a way of explaining an idea that is significantly different from how most texts will explain them. His explanantions of complex numbers and the uses of the complex plane, differential forms, and 4-velocity and 4-momentum pop out in my memory as particularly good, and are concepts that I don't feel I entirely "got" until here. Also, he builds the concepts upon each other slowly and systematically, giving the entire book a "story arc" that's rare among physics and mathematics texts. Most of the second half of the book is devoted to what could be considered "cutting edge" physics, and he does an excellent job of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the various approachs.

That being said, if this is your first exposure to these topics, you will be lost. The math is generally more clearly built up from what would be a non-mathematically minded person's starting point, but even that has points at which an extremely subtle mind is needed to fill in the intervening steps. The physics is even more difficult if you've had no exposure, but I personally found this to be one of the books virtues. For instance, you will probably come away with no understanding of electromagnetism and how electricity and magnetism came to be seen as unified if this is your first exposure, but for those who already have encountered it at an undergraduate level, you will come to a much deeper appreciation of its symmetries.

All in all an excellent book, but the publishers should reconsider the way they are marketing it as a book for the layman.

It is not possible to express the ideas of modern physics without using mathematics very different from what one studies in high school. But a popular physics book can hardly assume more than a high school level of math. Therefore popular physics books are impossible.

Penrose's 'The Road to Reality' is a demonstration of this proposition. Penrose must be congratulated for facing the problem head on, not shying away from the formulae and trying to teach his readers all the mathematics needed. Penrose is more capable than most for such an undertaking, and often he comes up with clever, intuitive ways of explaining difficult concepts. But ultimately the beautifully-crafted intuition collapses due to the lack of a supporting structure of necessary technical details and hard proofs and the reader is left holding fuzzy ideas which he cannot independently apply.

The book would be a great way for a graduate student in physics or mathematics to see the big picture. Others would do well to stick either with less ambitious popularizations or to go straight to the textbooks. For the former, my recommendation would be Penrose's own The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (Popular Science) while for the latter there is no better place to begin than Singer and Thorpe's Lecture Notes on Elementary Topology and Geometry (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) and Needham's Visual Complex Analysis.

A book with this breath and sublty comes along a couple of times in a generation. There have been Feynman's Lectures on Physics, Misner Thorne Wheeler Gravitation and others. Penrose is a world class mathematician and physicist (but you already know that). I cannot begin to adequately review this book even handedly because his audience is really other stellar mathematical physicists which I certainly am not.

I had the requisite math background so I understood most of it from cover to cover. But I am under no illusion that I have mastered the material. I can say the content is superficial and tricks the lay reader into thinking he has mastered something when he has not.

We are talking about maths that are even beyond the Ph.D. level of mathematical physics here folks! How can even Penrose condense tens of thousands of pages of textbooks that one routinely must grasp to get where he is with so much facility? The publisher must have thought (and Penrose rationalized) that they could sell more books if they touted that even a mathematically challenged reader could get something from it. This is not the case.

True, I was thrilled at Penrose's intuitive grasp of difficult abstractions that had me puzzled from studying more pedestrian texts on these subjects. Simply breathtaking. I was a page turner from the get-go. However I was under no illusions that I was learning something other than vaporware.

The most interesting idea that caught my eye was his critique of symmetry. Animals have evolved to be pattern recognition machines. Survival goes to the brain that can see the "tiger burning bright in the forests of the night. Who has framed thy fearful symmetry?"

Physicists and certainly mathematicians have been guided by a mystical belief that Nature must follow some beautiful elegant mathematical plan. What is the platonic world of ideas but the symmetry of our own evolved brain functions? -- Good for this time and place but not generalizable. It has worked so far but what if looking for symmetry is wrong. What if framing our equations in terms of groups is wrong. What if Nature is chaotic, asymmetric, fractal?

Penrose entertains that the last 30 years has produced nothing which makes sense or is even observable. Yet physicists blindly 'theory-on' capivated by their presumptions. The point is they have lost sight of the physics, the data, the observations.

As Firesign Theatre once said "The People! Give them a light and they will follow it anywhere!" Well, we know from history where this goes. Penrose suffers from his own criticisms and wants to create something like Einstein's elegant relativity applied to quantum gravity. Who can blame him? What is learning but man's vain search for God?

But what if QFT's incredible accuracy is only an accident like the resonance particles. Feynman and others fudged enough to get the answers they were looking for even though QFT is not in principle normalizable. It is not even beautiful!

What if Einstein and unitary quantum mechanics was the last hurrah of this sort of elegance in our species? Strings are beautiful but we will never know if the theory is observable. I'm afraid the measurement paradox is confusing what side of the experiment the measurement is taken.

It is consciousness and evolved brain structure that is the problem. Penrose in other books has the (admittedly crack pot notion) that quantum gravity collapses the wavefunction and thereby creates consciousness. But maybe he was looking in the right direction?

It is time to examine ourselves and our inherited prejudices as Nature is not only stranger (non-symmetric, anti commutative) than we suppose; it is stranger than we can suppose (Arthur Eddington). The future of physics and maths lies in understanding the limits of our own brains. Maybe the largest symmetry group that exists (the "Monster" of 196K dimensions) is the symmetry group of the thinkers which discovered it. And there are no groups bigger than this!

This is definitely the most comprehensive book ever published on theoretical physics, written by one of the most influential theoretical physicists alive! But the reader should be forewarned : it is not easy reading, even if one skips the maths, as Penrose suggests in the Introduction...
Now, if one wants to understand everything, then it becomes really challenging, and I don't think many readers would be up to it. By understanding everything, I mean understanding enough to be able to do the exercises, and , believe me, this is no easy task!Especially that the author forgets most of the time that this is supposed to be a book for the "general public",so he writes as if he were giving a lecture to his graduate students.That is, he assumes that the reader knows already a lot about the subject at hand. Take, for instance, his explanation about the "clock paradox" of Special Relativity : not only is this explanation very special to Penrose, but he does not even explain what the "paradox" is all about! And so the reader who encounters it for the first time would tend to think that the paradox is only the fact that the voyager ages slower than the observer who stays behind, which is not altogether true...There are other examples showing Penrose not at his very best: the presentation of the Davisson-Germer experiment,at Chapter 21, leaves much to be desired, as it does not explain its true predictive property, that of interference fringes.
The other aspect of the book that struck me is that Penrose distances himself from mainstream physics on two very important paradigms: spontaneous symmetry breaking in the early Universe, and inflationary cosmology. For him, there is no sufficient observational evidence for these two "speculative theories", as he calls them. Many cosmologists and physicists would surely disagree with him, but he has the honesty to express his beliefs, even when they are "out of phase" with those of other "pundits".And he has some very solid arguments, stemming from a deep insight into the Second Principle of Thermodynamics. It would be very interesting to see what the "inflationists" have to say about Penrose's arguments!
Another very significant fact is that Penrose does not show any sympathy whatsoever for Superstring Theory, preferring his own "twistor" approach to QFT. In this, he joins other theoretical physicists, such as the Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow, and lesser figures like Lee Smolin(see his book The Trouble with Physics) and Peter Woit(Not Even Wrong), who have been complaining about the non-falsifiability of SST for quite some time...Let's hope that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will be able to settle this issue, one way or the other, in the near future.
But be that as it may, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to all those readers who, like myself, are passionately looking for an explanation to the laws that govern "Reality", i.e the Universe we live in.

Finally, I would like to add here that "Publishers Weekly" makes a comparison between this book and Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". But this comparison is untenable: Hawking's small book is but child's play compared to this treatise!

This book is absolutely great!!! It centers around the insight that Moses was given the secret for attracting everything in life, and that this secret was given nearly 3,500 years ago.

Interestingly, James Twyman reveals that the effective use of the Moses Code depends more on what you're willing to 'give' rather than 'get.'

The Moses Code is based on the biblical quote "I am that I am" and further explains how this quote relates to manifesting prosperity.

Read "The Moses Code " to learn how to effectively use the power of Divinity to create a world based on compassion & peace.

Better read together with a contemporary New Energy novel "Nexus" by Morrison & Singh; deep, true to life, enlightening.

Excellent read. Read in only 3 days. I couldn't put it down. I wanted to know how it worked. I've read the Secret and other Law of Attraction books but this one takes it to a different level. I've applied things that he said to do and my personal, business and finanical life has changed for the better. It was amazing. You'll want to re-read just to stay on your path. I read this in conjunction with Debbie Ford's "Why Good People Do Bad Things".

I didn't know what to expect the first time I read this book. However, James Twyman shows you how to create the law of attraction in your life, with a different version - so to speak. His personal experiences are massive when he uses the Moses code to create wonderful things in his life.

An inspirational book for someone who needs hope again in life. A great book for your spiritual side~

Merna

Pocket of Pearls: A 30-day pocket workbook to start hearing a softer voice inside of you!

Very easy to read and WOW once i opened the book i could not put it down. Very enlightening read, keep beside bed for nightly read.

I read the book in "stages" at first. Once I got a clear mind-set, I was off and running, or actually, off and reading! I am so grateful to everyone who made this book possible, it has gotten me through some very challenging times, and I was also able to share some of the ideas and thoughts expressed in THE MOSES CODE! I will read it many times over, I am certain!

With Love and Gratitude,
Marion Williams

Urghh - yet another wannabe leaping onto the bandwagon of the so-called Laws of: attraction, magnetism, letting go, etc, etc! The front cover alleges it's about "the astounding science of wealth and happiness" but the book barely refers to a single piece of scientific research. I'm fed up with this sort of pseudo-science, which wasted so much of my time and money till I got wiser to it all.

If you really want to know about happiness and success, read "The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want" by Sonja Lyubomirsky - someone who has spent decades researching happiness and studying the literature on happiness research. Also "The Intention Experiment" by Lynne McTaggart is totally based on research. Every suggestion they offer is proven to work.

'Quantum Success: The Astounding Science of Wealth & Happiness' by Sandra Anne Taylor is a book that I recommend for you to read if you want to learn how to manifest a more prosperous life; career, relationships, happiness, & health etc. can all become more fulfilling & abundant.

A comprehensive understanding of Universal Laws is provided in this book such as the Law of Attraction, the Law of Pure Desire, & the Law of Magnetism.

Furthermore, powerful information is clearly explained that will help you put prosperity theory into practice in order to experience real results- including insights into your subconscious mind & thought vibration & quantum success.

Another book I recommend is "Nexus" by Morrison & Singh, a powerful, spiritual New Age Novel.

Nexus: A Neo Novel

For me this whole ideas of Quantum Physics as applied to life and money, and success is a totally new concept. I loved the book and went on to buy another by the same author on relationships. It's quite enlightening! I'm using the principles daily and reaffirming my energetic qualities.

Sandra Taylor was ahead of the curve when she wrote this book, a couple years before The Secret even was being considered into production.

This is by far the most down to Earth and comprehensive book on the law of attraction and the manifestation process. She uses real life examples from her clients to outline the concepts, which is one of the most helpful aspects of it.

Having trouble manifesting? Look it up in this book. This is the troubleshooting guide to every law of attraction book.

Quantum Success has been a God-send to me. There have been so many fluff pieces on living a magnetic life, but this book is golden. It really puts great tools for real power right in the palms of your hands. I couldn't recommend this book more highly. And I'm thrilled to see that Taylor has a new book, The Secrets of Success! I can't wait to read it!

If your property professor follows the majority trend and decides to use the Dukeminier/Krier casebook, Gilbert's law summaries will be an absolute godsend. I actually really liked the casebook (what can I say; the occasional interjections of bitter self-awareness really lightened up what could have otherwise been an intolerably ponderous subject), but found it to be simply too dense at times, especially in those areas of property that collide unpleasantly with reality. Future Interests, for example, is a notoriously difficult subject to grasp, and I found the D/K casebook's approach to be a little too historical and a little too rich...

...making this outline exactly what I needed. Dukeminier's historically based focus is still in evidence here, and you really still get everything that's present in the textbook, but it's conveyed in a far more comprehensible, far less intimidating fashion. If you missed the finer distinctions between an EI and a CR, you'll definitely find the explanations here to be illuminating.

The outline fares less well in its discussions of the more doctrinally gray/heavy areas of a 1L property course (e.g. zoning, regulatory takings), but this shouldn't come as a surprise.

All in all, if you have a Property professor who uses the DK casebook and whose approach follows the historically grounded construction of property, you'll find this particular Gilbert's outline to be an invaluable reference and clarifying tool throughout the semester.

My Property prof. recommended this supplement, and I am glad that I bought and used it. I especially appreciated the clear charts (e.g., summary of present and future possessory interests).

As a new 1L, I asked the 2L's and 3L's if commercial outlines and study guides were worth the cost. Some said yes, some didn't - it's totally a personal preference. Across the board, professors weren't excited about them, so I didn't look into them until late in the first semester. I wish I would have purchased earlier. The property Gilbert's helped answer some questions I had about the big picture and specific elements. I purchased Gilbert's for all of my 2nd semester classes and there were very helpful for me throughout the courses and at final exam time.

I think this one in the Gilbert series is better than the ones that I know (Torts, Contracts, Criminal Law, and Civil Procedure). However, the treatment of this book is so superficial (or shallow, should I say), and the Emanuel's one could provide a deeper and more soild feel on the subject. I read both of them but I do not get a solid feeling on this one, it just like taking me riding a tour bus seeing the outside of the castle but never stepping inside to the castle. If you are interest in this one, may be you should check out Intro to Property by Singer which may be give you broader overview.

Gilbert Law Summaries: Property is one of the better Gilbert commercial outlines.

My property professor did not use Dukeminier's textbook, yet, this outline still seemed to flow pretty well chronologically with what we were studying. This was really helpful. I imagine that if your professor uses Dukeminier's textbook this resource would be even more invaluable.

Like any other Gilbert's this outline has a TON of information. Much much more information than you will likely cover in your class. And, as always, the outline is fairly specific in its coverage. It lists all of the exceptions to the exceptions which will likely bog you down if you do not have a good understanding of the general framework of the property law you are studying. And which will likely not be tested on your exams...but they are always good to know.

All-in-all I used this book to supplement my studies and found that it covered everything I needed and more. I didn't find any inconsistencies or conflicts with anything my professor said. Too bad property law in itself is killer.