A civil action
A civil action
TO everything there is a season. Time was when it was Alistair Maclean's name that appeared on the dust jacket of every second book published, extolling its virtues as an unputdownable read. Now it is John Grisham who is the No 1 dustjacket advocate, and it is Grisham's endorsement that you will find on the cover of A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr. Never was a recommendation more well-deserved.
"Whether in truth or fiction," says Grisham, "I have never read a more compelling chronicle of litigation". Neither have I. This is the true story of one of the most protracted and bitterly-fought battles in American legal history. It recounts how Boston lawyer Jan Schlichtmann is approached by a group of families who believe themselves to have been poisoned by toxic waste dumped near their water supply. Many of their children have died of leukemia.
Two of the biggest companies in America defend the action. Nine years of litigation follow, with countless millions of dollars at stake. Schlichtmann's only alternatives are a just settlement, or bankruptcy. Read this and you may never again envy lawyers the huge amounts of money they can earn. Engrossing.
A Civil Action is published by Arrow Books Ltd in the UK, and by Random House elsewhere.
Price £6.99 (UK). CH
Where to find software
FAIRPLAY'S tenth Marine Computing Guide is a classified directory containing detailed information on computer software, systems and services available for the maritime industry. There are over 360 companies and over 1,164 products listed. If you are thinking about buying software to do a particular task, but don't have the in-depth knowledge of what's available, this is a very good place to start.
Information is given about individual companies and the various software products they produce, including application areas, hardware requirements, operating systems, software versions, price, number of installations and a narrative description of individual software packages.
The guide is available on CD-ROM as well, complete with demonstrations of selected applications, and comes free with the hard copy guide. A handy extra on the CD-ROM is the option of printing off an order form for the relevant product at the touch of a button.
Marine Computing Guide 1998. Published by Fairplay Publications Ltd, 20 Ullswater Crescent, Coulsdon, Surrey CR5 2HR, UK. Tel: +44 181 645 2820, Fax: +44 181 660 2824,
E-mail: sal...@fairplay.co.uk.
Price £125 or $195
Arbitration practice
SWEET & Maxwell has published the third edition of the Handbook of Arbitration Practice. This contains new information on ADR, in addition to expert advice on arbitration in a number of sectors. Bruce Harris contributes the section on maritime, so you can see that what you will be getting will be good, assuming the likes of construction and agriculture have a person of similar kidney to the estimable Bruce.
The publisher is rightly confident of the quality of the book. It is available on a 28-day trial, which is exactly what arbitration is designed to avoid.
Handbook of Arbitration Practice. Published by Sweet & Maxwell Ltd, 100 Avenue Road, London NW3 3PF, UK. Tel: +44 171 393 7000.
Fax: +44 171 393 7010.
BIMCO Holiday Calendar
ON the basis that time is money, the BIMCO Holiday Calendar must be just about the best value in marine publishing today. If you have yet to get hold of a copy, you may already be short.
The 1998 edition is no different from any of the editions published since 1913. It provides specific information on general holidays in over 150 countries. In addition, it includes local holidays and working hours in more than 720 ports worldwide. Details of working hours, including overtime, shift work, Saturday, Sunday and weekday working hours are included in the country-by-country listing.
The calendar provides precise answers to such questions as, "When can overtime be worked?", "What are the ordinary working hours of the port?" and, "Is the day in question a general or local holiday, in its legal definition?" It is indispensable to those negotiating charter parties, planning voyages or computing laytime. It also makes entertaining reading for people with no particular interest in shipping, but who are just plain nosey.
BIMCO members receive a complimentary copy of the calendar annually. Other interested parties can obtain a copy from BIMCO Publications AS at a cost of Dkr715 from BIMCO Publications AS. Telephone: +45 44 44 45 00.
Fax: +45 44 44 44 50.
E-mail: mail...@bimco.dk
Eye contact
THE next time you are having a bad hair day, or just feeling sorry for yourself for some trivial reason, go along to a bookshop and spend £9.99 on a copy of The Diving-Bell & the Butterfly. You will be repaid a thousand times.
The book tells the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a 42-year-old father of two and editor-in-chief of Elle magazine in Paris who, in December 1995, suffered a massive stroke and slipped into a coma. When he regained consciousness three weeks later he was paralysed, speechless and only able to move one muscle - his left eyelid. His mind, though, was as active and alert as ever, and it was by blinking his left eyelid, and using a jumbled version of the alphabet, that he was able to dictate this book.
Bauby describes his life inside a hospital overlooking the English Channel, and recounts both the fantasies and the very real thoughts which occupy his mind while he is lying helpless - his family, his friends, good food he has eaten, books he has read, places he has visited.
This is a book to make you cry. It deserves a happy ending, but there cannot be one. Read it and feel privileged to be alive and well.
The Diving-Bell & the Butterfly is published in the UK by Fourth Estate, London. CH
Greetings
WE had a plentiful supply of Christmas cards in the Maritime Advocate offices. Thank you to all those who sent us their good wishes. Our favourite card is this one from Al Tamimi in Dubai. Not a drop of snow anywhere.
Club control
SOME of the best reading around continues to come from the P&I clubs. Witness the recent publication by the UK Club of Port State Control: A Practical Guide, which is just what it says it is. It covers the origins and development of PSC, and describes the main regimes - the Paris and Tokyo memoranda of understanding and the Vina del Mar agreement. There is also an extensive section on the US.
The main purpose of the guide is to inform club members of the requirements of each authority, thereby ensuring that they can comply with them fully. It achieves that admirably.
The guide is published for UK Club members in two formats - a full version for office use and a shorter guide for use by ships' masters. It is also available to non-members.
Electronic law
IN a joint venture with LLP, Context Ltd is now publishing Lloyd's Electronic Law Reports on CD-Rom. This is an authoritative source of ten years of commercial and maritime case law between 1987 and 1997. The reports are also being further developed to cover the full case archive.
Further details from Lindsell Marketing on +44 171 434 2090.
Fax: +44 171 437 4130.
E-mail: i...@atlas.co.uk