Book beat

A plethora of new book announcements today just in time for Christmas giving.  (They make wonderful stocking stuffers!)

A new edition of an old standard is out: Thomas Crandall’s (Wake Forest) and Douglas Whaley’s (Ohio State) Cases, Problems, and Materials on Contracts is now in its fourth edition from Aspen.  The book retains its problem-oriented approach, adds some new cases and aproblems, and reflects the proposed changes to Article 2.

Foundation Press has a new entrant in the Contracts field.  Louis Kaplow (Harvard) and Steven Shavell (ditto) have published Contracting. The short (141 pages) book is actually a slice of their longer Analytical Methods for Lawyers text.  It’s oriented toward teaching students how contracts function and how they are designed, and contains many sample contract provisions and full-length contracts.  There is a teacher’s manual.

Those who take an E-commerce focus in their classes will probably like Commercial Contracting: Sales, Leases, and Computer Information (LexisNexis) by Peter Alces (Wm. & Mary), David Frisch (Richmond), and Francis Mootz (Penn State). The text is designed for something a little broader than the traditional Article 2 course, with in-depth treatment of UCITA, UETA, E-Sign, and the CISG.

An E-commerce stalwart is also out in a new edition from Aspen, Electronic Commerce by Ronald Mann (Texas) and Jane Winn (U. Washington). The second edition is a problem-oriented approach that covers 40 distinct topics, allowing teachers to select the items they like from the buffet.

Finally, it’s not a Contracts book, but Section member Tom Joo (UC-Davis) has a new anthology on from Carolina, Corporate Governance: Law, Theory & Policy. If you (like one of the editors of this blog) teach business associations along with Contracts), you’ll find it a well-balanced and thoughtful selection of recent scholarship, particularly suitable for those who focus on large publicly held entities.