Futurelawyer

Project Gutenberg Has Over 60,000 Free EBooks. Therefore, I Have Over 60,000 Books On My Kindle.

Download Free Kindle Ebooks. You could spend a human lifetime, and never read 60,000 books. You certainly could never collect print versions of them, unless you were a major library. So, the ability to call up any book in seconds and read them, with illustrations, on a tiny device I can hold in my hand, is magical. I never get tired of spending a few minutes browsing the Project Gutenberg book list, knowing that someone isn't going to grab me by the shoulder and charge me something. I am reading the Collected Works Of Shakespeare this weekend. I won't finish, but I can keep at it, if fate gives me more time. "To Be or Not to Be." I think I will be and read today.

Kindle PaperWhite - Book Machine On Steroids.

Hundreds of thousands of books in my hand. This featherlight Kindle Paperwhite device is dust and water resistant, goes anywhere , and doesn't require bookshelves. I can browse the titles 15 at a time and I don't need to pull them off a shelf. Need to spend time in a Pandemic? Read a book.

Execupundit Rearranging His Library Is A Job For Pyramid Builders.

It is said that the first step to recovery is acknowledgment. So, when Michael Wade posts about his problems rearranging his library to accommodate a new bookcase and to create a work area, it is fitting that he posts a photo of the Pyramids. Michael, Michael. I have hundreds of books stored on my Kindle, which weighs a few ounces, is waterproof, and I never have to rearrange its contents, except in the cloud. I keep around a few books of paper and glue and ink, just to have an occasional tactile experience. This may be TMI, but I also smell them occasionally. What's your excuse?

Reading Is Fundamental

Do you have shelves of books you have read, or do you have a book collection?

Not All Actors Are Brain Dead Hypocrites.

Greenlights Matthew McConaughey. The stereotype of actor as brainless hypocrite is a staple of our modern society. However, the golden boy, Matthew McConaughey, defies the stereotypes. He is eccentric, to be sure; but, he speaks honestly, and has a more than passing interest with Stoicism, and other philosophical endeavors. Many of us have wanted to strike out and explore the unknown; but, few of us have the courage to actually do it. The stories of his travels remind me of Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, and are a reminder that we are all traveling and looking for meaning. While his travels allow him to interact with many other humans, and find some enlightenment from them, we don't really need to travel to gain enlightenment. Everything we need to know is already within us. We just need to allow ourselves to see it.

#TBT - Legal Research And News Used To Come From Books And Newspapers.

When I started law school (in a year before you were born), Research and Writing was conducted in the law library, among thousands of hard cover books. We were taught to walk around, look into card catalogues, and take books off the shelves. We piled them on wooden tables, and turned pages to locate pertinent material. Before we came to school that day, we walked to the curb and picked up a newspaper, which we read over coffee in the kitchen. Our law texts were big, heavy paper books, which we placed into big briefcases and carried around all day. Since we only had one car, I walked ten blocks to school and back in the afternoon. Now, we get our legal research and our news while sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen, or on a telephone that fits in a shirt pocket. While more current than newspapers and books, is the information more reliable? Rat The Newsman.

Virtual Libraries Are The Future Of Books

Library Virtual Reality Program. Just as the Internet caused legal research on CDs to have a short life, so also will law libraries make a transition for books on paper, to CDs, to the Internet, to Virtual Reality. Even now, libraries all over the world are investing in the educational benefits that virtual reality can bring. As VR headsets get smaller and lighter, the time will come when you will have access to all the world's books just by putting a pair of VR glasses on. Imagine wandering through a virtual world of books, and being able, at any time, to stop and speak with a virtual librarian equipped to call forward anything from the human knowledge bank. Call it the democratization of knowledge. We will no longer be limited by our physical disabilites. Our world is becoming less limited by our physical limitations, as we create technology that our brains can navigate; albeit, for the time being, using headsets, and ear buds, and glasses to enhance human senses. It really is a brave new world.

#TBT - Have You Bought Your Copy Yet?

Tom Wolfe Was Prescient And We Are Living The Bonfire Of The Vanities.

The more I follow current events, the more I am reminded of Tom Wolfe's novel, Bonfire Of The Vanities. Am I alone? But, Wolfe was not just a prescient satirist of modern American society and politics. In "A Man In Full", Wolfe examines our reactions to tragedy and bad news:

“What little bit Conrad had learned about philosophy had seemed to concern people who were free and whose main problem was to choose from among life’s infinite possibilities. Only Epictetus began with the assumption that life is hard, brutal, punishing, narrow, and confining, a deadly business, and that fairness and unfairness are beside the point. Only Epictetus, so far as Conrad knew, was a philosopher who had been stripped of everything, imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, threatened with death. And only Epictetus had looked his tormenters in the eye and said, ‘You do what you have to do, and I will do what I have to do, which is live and die like a man.’ And he had prevailed. But most important of all, only Epictetus understood. He understood!” — Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full

Now, ask me again why I am smiling.

Slobbing For A Time In St. Petersburg

 I first read Travels With Charley in college. Since then, I have tried to live my life with a healthy dose of Steinbeck like voraciousness. As an overachiever in high school, it never occurred to me that laziness and lack of movement towards a goal were sometimes noteworthy accomplishments. Steinbeck changed my mind. Like him, I tend to overindulge in whatever activity I find myself, including lack of activity. Today seems to be one of those days. Thanks to my understanding spouse, I have no one nagging me to change. She is a unique woman indeed. So, raise a glass to Steinbeck, and smoke that cigar. You don't have an infinite number of opportunities left.

“I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America