Paul Goldstein's A PATENT LIE in Washington Post BookWorld

FLAWED REPRESENTATION

By Patrick Anderson,
whose e-mail address is mondaythrillers@aol.com
Monday, June 16, 2008; p.C08

A PATENT LIE
By Paul Goldstein

Doubleday. 293 pp. $24.95

Michael Seeley, the intellectual property lawyer at the center of this legal thriller, is down on his luck when we meet him. Seeley grew up in Buffalo, the son of a drunken lout who beat him and his younger brother, but he made his way to Harvard Law School and then to a fast-track firm in Manhattan. He won some celebrated cases, but drink brought him down. One day, blotto, he called a judge a pompous toad to his face and was nearly disbarred. He returned to Buffalo and embraced the joys of sobriety and a solo law practice. This novel starts when his younger brother, Leonard, whom he hasn't seen in nine years, arrives to make Seeley an offer he can't refuse.

Leonard is the chief medical officer for Vaxtek, a mid-size biotech company in San Francisco. Vaxtek, he explains, has developed and patented the most effective AIDS vaccine yet devised. But now his company is suing St. Gall, a giant Swiss drug producer, for infringing its patent. The trial starts in three weeks, billions of dollars are at stake, and Leonard wants his brother to be Vaxtek's lead lawyer. Seeley asks the obvious question: Why, at this late date, don't you have a lawyer? He died, his brother says. How? "He threw himself in front of a train." At that point, veteran thriller fans will suspect that Seeley risks leaving more than his heart in San Francisco if he takes this case, which of course he does.

Seeley is greeted by suspicion and hostility at Vaxtek, and he begins to fear there is something profoundly wrong about the case. He distrusts his star witness, the Vaxtek scientist who claims to have invented the vaccine. When the trial begins, Seeley is pitted against a canny old lawyer named Emil Thorpe as well as a glamorous but tough-minded judge, Ellen Farnsworth. The author, Paul Goldstein, is a professor at Stanford Law School and an authority on intellectual property law, and among the novel's pleasures are his insights into lawyers and the games they play.

Here, for example, he reflects on the sexy judge: "Federal judges are usually smarter and more able than most of the lawyers who come before them and, with their lifetime tenure, possess a detachment not unlike the composure of a beautiful woman who knows the effect that her good looks have on men. Judge Farnsworth had both." Elsewhere, the sly old lawyer Thorpe, who adopts a melancholy mien in court, lightens up for a moment, whereupon: "Having now seen the phantom of a smile from this austere, sorrowful man, the jurors would work to please him if that was the price to see him smile once more."

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Marlene Zuk's RIDDLED WITH LIFE reviewed in BioScience

For the full text of the article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in The Boston Globe

'The good and the bad are part of each other'
From author, a child's-eye view of China's Cultural Revolution

By David Mehegan
Globe Staff / June 9, 2008.

Once upon a time in faraway China, a little girl lived with her father and grandparents in a house with a courtyard in Beijing. She was happy, playing with her schoolmates and little brother. Then hard times came. She lived through them safely, grew up, and came to America to study. Now she lives happily with her husband in a house with a courtyard on Beacon Hill.

That's the story of Moying Li, 53, author of the just-published "Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution." Published in the young-adult category, the book is written in a style that could appeal as readily to adult readers. It begins with China's disastrous Great Leap Forward in 1958 and ends in 1977, with the 26-year-old English student crossing the Luohu Bridge into Hong Kong en route to a flight that will take her to a new life in America.

There are many accounts of the Cultural Revolution, which ravaged Chinese society from 1966 to 1976. What sets Li's witness and memory apart is its simplicity, lack of clutter or moralizing. It is almost entirely about relationships, with little of politics or history. She does not look back in anger. "I see it in a Taoist way," she said in an interview at her home. "The good and the bad are part of each other, somehow. Even though I and my generation went though hard times, without it I wonder if we would have gained maturity and reflection. In one sense, the experience of the Cultural Revolution has become to me a strength."

Li's mother, assigned to teach in another city, was often absent, so the key adults in the child's life were her father, who was a screenwriter for an army film bureau and a book lover, and her dynamic grandmother, Lao Lao. Both lavished warmth on the two children, and encouraged them to be students and readers. But they were not immune from the troubles around them. In the late 1950s, the family built a backyard furnace, part of a delusional national campaign to build a steel industry that would overtake the productivity of the West. That and other policies of national mismanagement led to failure and famine.

In 1966, when Li was 12, the Cultural Revolution burst over her school as it swept the country. Groups of fanatical students, called Red Guards, engaged in a witch hunt, seeking to root out perceived enemies holding back the communist revolution. Students, teachers, and administrators were denounced and attacked. In one incident, an older girl who had previously befriended Li presided over a kangaroo court where a 7-year-old child was forced to beat her father, the assistant headmaster, with a stick. After similar attacks, the headmaster hanged himself, and one of Li's uncles likewise committed suicide. A squad of Red Guards burst into her house, destroyed her father's record collection, and took away his books. A group of thugs threatened Li's widowed grandmother.

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James Galbraith's THE PREDATOR STATE in Publishers Weekly

Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 5/19/2008
-- Publishers Weekly, 5/19/2008

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should, Too
James K. Galbraith. Free Press, $25 (228p) ISBN 978-1-4165-6683-0

In this involved but highly readable manifesto, economist Galbraith (Created Unequal) argues that only liberals remain in thrall to conservative economics, insisting that doctrines such as monetarism, supply-side economics and balanced budgets have failed the test of evidence and time. Republicans, he contends, have tacitly dropped them to create a swollen “predator state” that plunders public resources for corporate profit through such nostrums as private health insurance, No Child Left Behind, and Social Security privatization. He exhorts liberals to stop kowtowing to market solutions and budget-balancing and embrace a bold (though frustratingly nonspecific) New Deal featuring aggressive government planning and regulation and massive growth-promoting federal deficits. Galbraith's tour of economics abounds in arresting facts and opinions (tax cuts do not stimulate savings or investment, he argues), but his conclusions are not always clear: after demolishing justifications for free trade, he then urges readers not to worry about America's vast trade deficits—even though they threaten, he notes, to cause a catastrophic collapse of the dollar. His is a stimulating if sometimes scattershot challenge to conventional wisdom. (Aug. 5)

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Ronald Michael Green's BABIES BY DESIGN on LibraryJournal.com

LIBRARYJOURNAL.COM ANNOUNCES BEST SELLERS IN MEDICINE

Best Sellers in Medicine, October 2007–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13-digit ISBNs in brackets)

4. Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice
Green, Ronald Michael
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300125461 [9780300125467]. $26.00

For the full article, click here.

Christopher Lane's SHYNESS on LibraryJournal.com

LIBRARYJOURNAL.COM ANNOUNCES BEST SELLERS IN MEDICINE

Best Sellers in Medicine, October 2007–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13-digit ISBNs in brackets)

1. Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness
Lane, Christopher
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300124465 [9780300124460]. $27.50

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Moying Li interview on BookBrowse

Author Statement from Moying Li, Author of Snow Falling In Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution

I feel very fortunate that my memoir, Snow Falling In Spring will be published just a few months before the 2008 Olympic Games, which will be held in the city of my birth—Beijing.

As Pierre de Coubertin, the modern father of the Olympic Movement, once said, "The foundation of real human morality lies in mutual respect—and to respect one another it is necessary to know one another." The 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the time leading up to it, offers an unprecedented chance for China to interact and communicate with the rest of the world.

Overall, from the increasing media focus to the fast-growing commercial and cultural interactions, it is evident that the world has fixed its eye on China for quite some time. This attention will only intensify with the Summer Olympics. It’s estimated that 4.5 million people from around the world will visit Beijing in 2008, in addition to billions of others who will tune in via satellite television.

I believe that, in true Olympic spirit, a better understanding of human commonality and shared vision will emerge from this engagement. And I hope my book, in a small way, will help toward reaching that goal.

-Moying Li

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING on Scholastic's Best Books list

BEST BOOKS
10 books for younger readers, 10 for older!

By Hannah Trierweiler | May/June 2008

Here’s something that no one but other teachers seem to understand: The best part of your job isn’t the summers off. It isn’t the shiny apples or the all-access pass to the teacher’s lounge. No, it’s the fact that you never have to leave the world of children’s books. It’s okay for you to read Ramona on the subway or Harry Potter on the Stair Master. When people ask what you’ve read lately, you won’t raise eyebrows if you say Eric Carle. You’re doing research, after all. No need to trade the wonderful adventures written for children for the grown-up side of the bookstore! With that in mind, we’ve pored through the offerings from the past school year to deliver the best new stories for every child—and for your beach tote, as well. Enjoy your stay in the worlds of Charlotte and Harriet, Despereaux and Stuart Little. It’ll be our little secret.

Best Memoir for Middle Schoolers
Snow Falling in Spring, by Moying Li.
Subtitled “Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution,” this is Li’s engrossing story about her life from ages 12 to 22—the tragedies faced by her friends and family, the harsh conditions of Chinese labor camps, and the refuge she found in books.

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Paul Goldstein's ERRORS AND OMISSIONS reviewed in Booklist

A PATENT LIE

Review in Booklist.

In Goldstein’s debut novel, Errors and Omissions (2006), the story of a movie studio hell-bent on securing the rights to the James Bond franchise, he showed that copyright law can be sexy. Here, Goldstein brings pizzazz to another area of intellectual property, patents—pharmaceuticals, to be exact. Michael Seeley is enjoying his reclusive life back in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, handling small-time cases instead of the corporation litigation suits he used to head up at a big Manhattan firm. He doesn’t miss that cutthroat (and alcoholic) life, but he is hard-pressed to turn down his estranged brother Leonard’s plea for help. Leonard is a doctor with a small pharmaceutical company in San Francisco, and he claims one of the giant corporations in the industry has stolen their patent for a breakthrough drug treating people who are HIV-positive. As he learns about the case, Michael realizes that his brother has not been completely forthright. Goldstein pairs a first-rate medical drama with a tragic story of a broken family, and he effectively combines suspense with rich characterization.

For more Booklist reviews, click here.

Lou Ureneck's BACKCAST in The Philadelphia Inquirer

FATHER-SON RIFT HEALED BY FISHING ADVENTURE

By Art Carey,
Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted on Thu, Jun. 5, 2008

When Lou Ureneck was a young man, the future he envisioned centered on one certainty: He would never get divorced. He would always be there, a father to his children.

He knew well the pain of divorce. When Ureneck was 7, his father abandoned the family. He never saw or heard from him again.

His mother remarried a charismatic charmer. Johnny Kababick took Ureneck fishing in central Jersey and returned from his voyages with the merchant marine brimming with enchanting stories. He was "the kind of father every boy wants to have," Ureneck recalls.

But one Saturday afternoon, after escalating marital clashes, Johnny walked out, without packing clothes or saying a word, and never came back.

And so when Ureneck married a pretty girl from Portsmouth, N.H., and fathered two children of his own, Elizabeth and Adam, he vowed that he would give them a "normal life," a life that was rooted and secure, with both parents living happily under the same roof.

"Divorce - I couldn't even conceive of it," Ureneck says. "I'd never let it happen to me. It would not be part of my life. . . . But guess what? Life has a way of surprising us."

Ureneck tells of the terrible toll of his divorce - on himself, his son and their relationship - in a beautiful book, Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska (St. Martin's Press, $24.95). Ureneck will read from the book at 2 p.m. Sunday at Barnes & Noble in Exton.

An adventure story wrapped around a memoir, it chronicles a fishing trip Ureneck took with his son in the summer of 2000. Adam, a newly minted graduate of Germantown Friends School, was smarting from his father's devastating decision to part from his mother. Ureneck, a former Inquirer editor, was struggling with guilt and the conviction he had failed as a husband and father.

"My life was in a ditch: I was broke from lawyers, therapists and alimony payments and fearful that my son's anger was hardening into lifelong permanence," he writes.

"In the last few years, I had met many men who no longer had any contact with their children because of a divorce. These men didn't see their children at holidays and missed their graduations. . . . I couldn't bear the thought of losing my son. I wouldn't let it happen, even if it meant taking the risk of a self-guided and underfinanced trip to Alaska."

The trip begins inauspiciously. The weather is foul; the mosquitoes, relentless. Ureneck's homemade map of the wild Kanektok River is inadequate. Adam is surly and sullen, rejects his father's diffident attempts to exert paternal authority, and misses no chance to express contempt and criticism. The exchanges between them are strained and awkward.

"Meeting angry bears and getting lost in the woods was scary," Ureneck says, "but not half as scary as the prospect of losing my son."

Backcast is bejeweled with reflections about fatherhood and philosophical musings about the soul-soothing pleasures of fishing in general and fly-fishing in particular.


For the full article, click here.

David W. Blight's A SLAVE NO MORE a 2007 book to remember

Remember 2007?
The NY Public Library does. They've announced their annual list of 25 books to remember, including:

A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
Blight, David W. | Harcourt, © 2007 | 973.7115 B
These powerfully moving writings open a unique window into slave society and the complex struggles of life after escape.

For the NYPL's full list, click here.

Benjamin Taylor's THE BOOK OF GETTING EVEN in The New Yorker

Books Briefly Noted

THE BOOK OF GETTING EVEN
by Benjamin Taylor (Steerforth; $23.95)

June 9, 2008

Gabriel Geismar, the embattled protagonist of Taylor’s excellent second novel, is the son of a domineering rabbi growing up in nineteen-fifties New Orleans. Homosexual, suffering from a physical deformity (he has a supernumerary thumb), and enthralled by mathematics—“calculability, sweet detachment from the corporeal universe”—Gabriel has “a furious craving for other, nobler origins.” In college, he meets Marghie and Danny Hundert, whose famous physicist father is one of his heroes, and adopts the family as his own. The book explores the tortured and often misguided process by which children attempt to define themselves in relation to their parents (one iteration of the “getting even” of the title), a process from which Danny and Marghie, as Gabriel slowly discovers, are not exempt. Taylor captures their quests for identity in pitch-perfect dialogue and lengthy meditative passages; his elegant plotting feels at once deliberate and improvised.

For the full article, click here.