The first time I remember really being excited about a book was The Count of Monte Cristo.

As a defense lawyer, he refused to condemn his clients. Everyone else in the system-the cops, the prosecutors, the juries and judges-would take care of that; they didn't need his help.

For thousands and thousands of American kids, libraries are the only safe place they can find to study, a haven free from the dangers of street or the numbing temptations of television. As schools cut back services, the library looms even more important to countless children.

If life's lessons could be reduced to single sentences, ther would be no need for fiction.

Poison Pill is a great reading. The novel ranges from Russian oligarchs to the American worlds of drug research and the equity markets, all of it in a mode of high suspense.

The issue is not whether there are horrible cases where the penalty seems "right". The real question is whether we will ever design a capital system that reaches only the "right" cases, without dragging in the wrong cases, cases of innocence or cases where death is not proportionate punishment. Slowly, even reluctantly, I have realized the answer to that question is no- we will never get it right.

On the streets, unrequited love and death go together almost as often as in Shakespeare.