Present Value

On a completely unrelated note, I just spent a cross-country plane ride reading a pretty good novel that touches on law-firm life.  It's by a real-life big-law-firm partner, so for once it got most of the lawyer details right.  Given how amazingly hackneyed some of the central motifs sound when you try to explain them (there is, for example, a running theme about how Blackberries promote obsession with work, and two of the characters are classic overindulged teenagers whose reaction to September 11 is annoyance that their TV shows are being preempted), it actually managed to be remarkably understated and fresh.