"I may not know diddle about being a detective, but I have a certain rudimentary grasp of the detective story," Amsterdam remarks, summing up the book's rationale.
The book draws rationale from evolutionary psychology and behavior to justify our attitudes toward debt, fat, drugs, risk, greed, gender, beauty, infidelity, family, and friends/foes.
I tell you all this in lieu of interpretive theories of the book, or rationales for why you should or shouldn't read it.
"Cause" is precisely the right word; the rationale behind such books and movies, at least at first, was that we were making amends to a set of neglected heroes.
In addition to on-screen television guides, Gemstar also operates a patented system for publishing and reading electronic books, creating a potential rationale for a deal if reading books on the screen of a hand-held appliance ever becomes popular.
Mr. Romney, for example, called his 2010 book laying out the rationale for his candidacy "No Apology" — charging, falsely in the eyes of many independent fact-checkers, that Mr. Obama had traveled the world apologizing for America.
The book helped provide a rationale for attempts at desegregation in the 1950s and '60s because it showed that whites had lived on basically equal terms with blacks for two decades even after the end of Reconstruction in 1876.
But Simmons persisted, digging up every rationale in the book.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) If you have understandably forgotten the rationale behind this book's title after seeing the exquisitely confusing film version with Gary Oldman, then one of the great pleasurable "Aha!" moments in modern fiction awaits you.
"I've heard every possible excuse and rationale in the book about why not to donate," Cummings said.
