Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Book Club
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CALI Seeks New Authors To Take Over And Update Three Tax Casebooks
The Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is looking for new authors to take over and update the three tax casebooks in its eLangdell Bookstore. The books are free to download and use by anyone under a Creative Commons License. (Printed versions are available at cost.) Although the books are free, CALI negotiates a…
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Douthat: How I Lost My Faith In Atheism
Christianity Today Op-Ed: How I Lost My Faith in Atheism, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025): Late in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus confesses his crisis of Catholic faith to a close friend. The friend asks if he intends to become a Protestant. “I said…
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Saving The Subject: How I Found You When I Almost Lost Me
Cameron Fathauer (Schad Law (New Albany, IN); J.D. 2021, Indiana-Maurer), Saving the Subject: How I Found You When I almost Lost Me (2024): In his debut book, "Saving the Subject," Cameron Fathauer paints a spiritual odyssey following his traumatic brain injury with vividness and vulnerability, capturing both the weight of his physical trials and the…
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Brunson: Between The Temple And The Tax Collector — The Intersection Of Mormonism And The State
Sam Brunson (Loyola-Chicago; Google Scholar), Between the Temple and the Tax Collector: The Intersection of Mormonism and the State (University of Illinois Press 2025): The founding and development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints run parallel to the rise of the modern tax system and administrative state. Samuel D. Brunson looks at…
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NY Times: The Best Argument Against Having Faith In God
New York Times Op-Ed: The Best Argument Against Having Faith in God, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025): Since last week’s newsletter offered a favorite argument for the existence of God, it’s only fair to balance the scales by considering a strong argument against religious faith, against the existence of some…
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Northwestern Hosts Book Event Today For Untaxed: The Rich, The IRS, And A New Approach To Tax Compliance
Northwestern hosts a book event for Joshua Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) and Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar), Untaxed: The Rich, the IRS, and a New Approach to Tax Compliance (Cambridge University Press 2024). Sarah Lawsky (Northwestern; Google Scholar) will provide commentary. One of the most common complaints about the tax system in the United States…
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NY Times Op-Ed: My Favorite Argument For The Existence Of God
New York Times Op-Ed: My Favorite Argument for the Existence of God, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025): I think that the most compelling case for being religious — for a default view, before you get to the specifics of creeds and doctrines, that the universe was made for a…
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Super Bowl LIX: Football’s Lessons For America (Vince Lombardi)
The Free Press: Things Worth Remembering, by Charles Lane: “I sometimes wonder whether those of us who love football fully appreciate its great lessons,” said Vince Lombardi, in what friends and family called “the speech.” [What It Takes to Be #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership] [Football] is a great game, a game of great lessons,…
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Graetz Presents The Power To Destroy: How The Antitax Movement Hijacked America Today At San Diego
Michael Graetz (Columbia; Google Scholar) presents The Power to Destroy—How The Antitax Movement Hijacked America (2024) at San Diego today as part of its Tax Speaker Series: The postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared…
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Lawless: The Miseducation Of America’s Elites
Ilya Shapiro (Manhattan Institute), Lawless: The Miseducation of America's Elites (2025): In the past, Columbia Law School produced leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now, it produces window-smashing activists. What happens when America’s top law schools stop believing in legal education?When protestors at Columbia broke into a building and created illegal encampments,…
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It’s Time For A New Era Of Christian Civility
Following on last Sunday's post, New York Times Op-Ed (David French): Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?: Christianity Today Op-Ed: It’s Time for a New Era of Christian Civility, by Alexandra Hudson (Author, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves (2023)): Over the past few years, our society has continued…
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Yale Law School’s ‘Tiger Mom’ Roars Back
Following up on my previous post: Vanity Fair: What JD And Usha Vance Learned From Their ‘Tiger Mom’ At Yale Law School: Peter Savodnik (The Free Press), The Tiger Mother Roars Back: In January 2011, Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua was in the middle of her book tour, in her hotel room in Seattle, when…
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Pope Francis: There Is Faith In Humor
New York Times Op-Ed: There Is Faith in Humor, by Pope Francis (Co-Author, Hope: The Autobiography (Jan. 14, 2025)): Life inevitably has its sadnesses, which are part of every path of hope and every path toward conversion. But it is important to avoid wallowing in melancholy at all costs, not to let it embitter the…
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Blank & Glogower: The Rich, The IRS, And A New Approach To Tax Compliance
Joshua D. Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar), Untaxed: The Rich, the IRS, and a New Approach to Tax Compliance (Cambridge University Press, 2024): One of the most common complaints about the tax system in the United States is that rich taxpayers are able to lower their tax liabilities through abusive tax practices, often…
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Disappointed By Christians. Disappointed By Church. Disappointed By God.
Christianity Today Book Review: Disappointed by Christians. Disappointed by Church. Disappointed by God., by Harvest Prude (reviewing Lisa Victoria Fields, When Faith Disappoints: The Gap Between What We Believe and What We Experience (2024)): Why are people leaving the church or their faith behind? Some answers boil down to platitudes, like a supposed desire to…
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Jordan Peterson Loves God’s Word. But What About God?
Christianity Today Book Review: Jordan Peterson Loves God’s Word. But What About God?, by Brad East (Abilene Christian University; Google Scholar) (reviewing Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto; Google Scholar), We Who Wrestle With God: Perceptions of the Divine (2024)): The popular influencer’s latest book, We Who Wrestle with God, is ambitious, insightful, and slippery on…
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CEOs (And Deans) Achieve Peak Performance In Years 10-14
Wall Street Journal Bookshelf, The Evolution of Leadership (reviewing Claudius Hildebrand & Robert Stark, The Life Cycle of a CEO: The Myths and Truths of How Leaders Succeed (2024)): Chief executives have distinctive life cycles—like butterflies and frogs—and each phase has certain qualities worth identifying and paying attention to. That, at least, is the thesis…
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NY Times Op-Ed: Is the World Ready For A Religious Comeback?
New York Times Op-Ed: Is the World Ready for a Religious Comeback?, by Ross Douthat: The world seems primed for religious arguments in the same way it was primed for the new atheists 20 years ago. But the question is whether the religious can reclaim real cultural ground — especially in the heart of secularism,…
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Stewart Reviews Teo’s The United Nations In Global Tax Coordination
Miranda Stewart (Melbourne), The Voice of All Nations in Global Tax Coordination (JOTWELL) (reviewing Nikki J. Teo (Sydney), The United Nations in Global Tax Coordination (Cambridge University Press 2023)): Sometimes a book arrives at just the right moment in history. That is the case for The United Nations in Global Tax Coordination by Dr. Nikki J. Teo,…
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The Bible: A Global History
Wall Street Journal: ‘The Bible’: A Book on a Mission, by Barton Swaim (reviewing Bruce Gordon (Yale Divinity School), The Bible: A Global History (2024)): “One hundred years from my day,” Voltaire is supposed to have remarked, “there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.”…
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How Can Professors Learn Students’ Names?
Chronicle of Higher Education, How Can Professors Learn Students’ Names? A Scholar of Memory Shares Her Process.: When Michelle D. Miller leads faculty workshops, she often does what she calls a “party trick” that she uses on the first day of class with her students: learning everyone’s names. As professors have thanked her at the…
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For-Profit Philanthropy Wins ARNOVA Outstanding Book Award
The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) selected For-Profit Philanthropy: Elite Power and the Threat of Limited Liability Companies, Donor-Advised Funds, and Strategic Corporate Giving, by Dana Brakman Reiser (Brooklyn; Google Scholar) & Steven A. Dean (Boston University), for the Outstanding Book Award in Nonprofit & Voluntary Action Research: This book exposes a…
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It Is Not Best For Man To Eat Alone
Christianity Today op-ed: It Is Not Best for Man to Eat Alone, by Anna Broadway (Author, Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling (2024)): When the waiter brought out my long-awaited high tea that day, I didn’t expect I’d still be grieving it decades later. I was 21 and enjoying my first…
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Should You Have Kids In Law School?
Update: The Unbearable Lightness Of Choosing Children Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed: Should You Have Kids … In Grad School, by Anastasia Berg (UC-Irvine) & Rachel Wiseman (Managing Editor, The Point): The role of children and family in private and public life has become a flashpoint in the public discourse. The musician Charli XCX mused…
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Jesus And The Powers: Christian Political Witness In 2024
Christianity Today Book Review: T. Wright: What Jesus Would Say to the ‘Empire’ Today (reviewing N.T. Wright (University of St Andrews) & Michael F. Bird (Ridley College), Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (2024): In a year seeing over 50 countries at the polls—half of which could shift…