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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (7520)	12/13/2003 10:51:52 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

"Sometimes a Book Reads You" Ideas for Christmas giving and reading. by Terry Eastland 12/12/2003 12:00:00 AM Page 2 of 2 < Back "The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions," edited by Kermit L. Hall, is a very useful reference book. It contains cogent treatments of the Court's 400 most significant and consequential cases--such as Marbury v. Madison and Roe v. Wade. The 2001 edition is the latest. Michael Lewis's "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," which came out last spring, is a business book whose subject is baseball. Lewis explains how the Oakland A's can be one of the poorest teams in baseball and yet win so many games. The answer lies in the fact that baseball has an inefficient market for ballplayers. You can win big if you find undervalued players--precisely what Oakland has done. But to find those players you have to go beyond the game's ordinary statistics and take into account such things as the ability to draw a walk. "Moneyball" is the perfect gift for those of us long eager for spring training. Precocious Katherine, my daughter, a high school senior, observes that my list includes neither poetry nor plays So here's to you, Katie: I'm adding "T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950" (and being complete, it does have the magnificent "Four Quartets"). Seeing Eliot's volume on a shelf near books by C.S. Lewis, who early in his life aspired to be a poet, I'm also adding "Mere Christianity." Grasping as it does the real meaning of Christmas, it's worthy of being read on Christmas Day--or any day. Terry Eastland is publisher of The Weekly Standard. This column originally appeared in the Dallas Morning News.