Just Books
Before Roe V. Wade
By Linda Greenhouse
and Reva B. Siegel
By 1972, abortion was beginning to find a life in national party politics. Republican Party strategists seeking to persuade Catholic voters and other so-called social conservatives to abandon their traditional alignment with the Democrats...
Author Talk:
Linda Greenhouse
Interviewed by Nancy Northup
Let’s talk about Roe. Did the decision cause the subsequent conflict, or, was the decision merely a symbol that emerged from public conflict about abortion?
How I Ended Up in Glenn Beck's Line-of-Fire...
And Why It Matters
By Frances Fox Piven.
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Fame or Glory?
By Rachel Maddow
MSNBC Anchor and Smith College’s Commencement Speaker Tells Grads: Do not just for your own life, but for the life of your nation...
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Stranger and More Brutal Than Fiction
By Lorraine Adams
A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter and Novelist Looks at What Happens When Innocents are Swept Up in Counter-terror Efforts.
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Hey Kids! Justice is Cool!
John Grisham's latest is a legal thriller for young readers.
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham
Reviewed by John Schwartz
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Crime, Punishment and Deliverance
In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance by Wilbert Rideau
Reviewed by Amy Bach
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Voting, Disillusionment—and Worse—In Iran
Death to the Dictator! by Afsaneh Moqadam
Reviewed by Maggie Barron
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The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution
By Barry Friedman
For the first time in years, as the Supreme Court winds up its “busy” season – when most of the big decisions come down as the justices scramble to finish their term for the summer and get out of town – the justices are already the center of serious controversy and attention.
What is the perfect summer read?
Linda Greenhouse, Author, Before Roe v Wade: For summer reading – I am now in the middle of Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel, The Lacuna, and am greatly enjoying it. It features a fascinating parade of historical characters including Frieda Kahlo and Leon Trotsky, as seen through the eyes of a narrator who is at the same time very naïve and very wise.
Floyd Abrams, Partner, Cahill Gordon & Reindel: Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court by Jeff Shesol. A fine telling of the great battle between FDR and the conservative Supreme Court of the late 1930s which resonates with special force today. And, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson. The final irresistible sleep-destructive volume about journalists, police, bad guys and one of the most original characters in recent fiction.
Scott Turow, Author, Innocent: Cowboys Full, James McManus’s history of poker and Dave Barry’s I'll Mature When I'm Dead.
Bill Zabel, Founding Partner, Schulte Roth & Zabel: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played with Fire; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. This is a brillant trilogy that has been thrilling readers around the world.
Ed Koch, Partner, Bryan, Cave: Ed Koch And The Rebuilding of New York City, by Jonathan Soffer. The book will be published in October, but I am currently reading the proof.
Nina Totenberg, Legal Correspondent, NPR: For serious, informative, but still entertaining reading, I recommend Jeff Shesol’s book, Supreme Power, on the Court packing plan. For something more comprehensive about FDR, try Jean Edward Smith’s biography or Jonathan Alter’s book on the first hundred days, The Defining Moment. (If you haven’t read Doris Keans Goodwin’s book on Franklin and Eleanor in the war years, you have missed a treat.) On the absolute other end of the spectrum, Ruth Dudley Edwards has a satirically hilarious series featuring the multi-talented Robert Amiss, who in Clubbed to Death, goes under cover as a waiter at a stuffy British club to see who is knocking off the members. I am so fond of Rex Stout and his duo Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, that I find myself rereading books I loved years ago. forgotten. If anyone has a recommendation for a modern-day Stout or Christie type, do let me know. I have also just finished Evan Thomas' The War Lovers, about Teddy Roosevelt, Hearst, et al. It will blow your mind!
Seth Waxman, Partner, Wilmer, Hale: Fiction -- The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman; Operation Mincemeat, by Ben MacIntyre. Nonfiction -- Start-up Nation, by Dan Senor; Empire of Liberty, by Gordon Wood.
Judith Kaye, Of Counsel, Skadden, Arps: Three suggestions -- the short, the medium and the long. The short (a delightful train companion) is Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader. The medium is Scott Turow’s latest, Innocent. I was (surprisingly) drawn into it. And the long, which is fascinating but hard to schlep around, is Urofsky’s Brandeis.
Let us know your answer, here.
- Charles Ogletree, The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis, Gates, Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America
- Clay Shirkey: Facebook and Social Justice
- Khalil Mohammad: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America
- and Renee Paradis, The Politics of Polarization
