Book Review - The Appeal

I and a friend began a group on Facebook called Book Nerds where we discuss books of course. And other things. We have recently begun to post book reviews either in short on the discussion board or linked in from our other sites, so I have decided to begin doing book reviews here on Chats. We had a book Tuesday on the old Y!360 but I cannot get through a book a week unless I do nothing else so it will be an occasional event.

I ready John Grisham's The Appeal a couple of weeks ago, and it lingers in my thoughts. That for me is a mark of a good book. Another test of a good read for me is if I learned something, and I did in this book. Seldom has Grisham disappointed me but I am particularly fond of those books where he returns to his roots in rural Mississippi - even those that are not legal suspense novels. This book is both legal suspense and rural Mississippi and takes on the tort process. Timely topic given that the Republicans want tort reform in the health care bill.

I was on the fence about huge settlements in law suits over whether McDonald's served its coffee too hot or not. But Grisham, in a suspenseful novel, advances the thought that without those huge settlements (which are mere pennies to big companies) we would go from being at the mercy of those with the deepest pockets to pay the most lawyers to having no avenue of redress at all. In other words what the tort reformers want to do is make it impossible for little people to sue big business. But he seems not to be against some reform and without distracting from the story line presents some alternatives.

I recommend this book for anyone that wants a good read. But I also recommend it for anyone that wants a view of all that is wrong and write with the appeal process and election of judges.