If you're looking for something to take your mind off fantasy baseball for a bit, Bill James' book "Popular Crime" is very good. It's a history of crime in the United States since the 18th century, focusing on cases that got a lot of public attention, and whether they were handled properly and what changes they caused in the country.
It is the Bill Jamesiest book it could possibly be. If you've ever wanted to see his kind of witty, math-geeky analysis of something other than baseball, this is it. I'm about halfway through and he's already invented three or four different scoring systems to describe why a case is interesting and whether someone is guilty etc. There's a section where he's talking about a case and he says something like "Some people aren't sure if this guy is guilty. On a scale where 100 means he should be found guilty, I think this case is worth 213 points, and here's why."
It's coming out in paperback in two months if you don't need it quite yet.
Popular Crime on Amazon
- Mike
It is the Bill Jamesiest book it could possibly be. If you've ever wanted to see his kind of witty, math-geeky analysis of something other than baseball, this is it. I'm about halfway through and he's already invented three or four different scoring systems to describe why a case is interesting and whether someone is guilty etc. There's a section where he's talking about a case and he says something like "Some people aren't sure if this guy is guilty. On a scale where 100 means he should be found guilty, I think this case is worth 213 points, and here's why."
It's coming out in paperback in two months if you don't need it quite yet.
Popular Crime on Amazon
- Mike
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