Evelyn Douek, Associate Professor of Law, recommends The Dutch House by Ann Patchett and The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind–and Changed the History of Free Speech in America by Thomas Healy
This year I (way too belatedly) discovered Ann Patchett and devoured much of her back catalogue. My favorite is still the first I read though—The Dutch House. Patchett writes with real compassion for her characters, which is a lovely thing to spend time with these days.
I also read and loved The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind–and Changed the History of Free Speech in America by Thomas Healy. It tells the story of how Justice Holmes changed his mind about free speech and, with it, the course of history and the First Amendment. This had been on my list for a long time, and while I was expecting to learn a lot, I was not expecting to find it such a page turner. It’s a great time to be reminded why and how the modern free speech tradition was forged.
Richard Thompson Ford, George E. Osborne Professor of Law, recommends The Sellout: A Novel by Paul Beatty and Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes
The Sellout: A Novel by Paul Beatty. Okay, I’m reluctant to recommend this one. It’s brilliant, hilarious, insightful, gut-wrenching, and the winner of the Booker Prize. But it’s not for everyone: this is some raw stuff. The plot involves a black man who winds up in front of the Supreme Court defending slavery. If you are easily offended or a fan of Clarence Thomas—well, you’ve been warned.
Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes. This is almost the opposite: fun, frothy, and lighthearted comedy. It centers on the McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts, a Tim Burton- meets-J.K. Rowling institute for people with righteous grudges against appalling soon-to-be-deceased enemies. Expect a Broadway musical soon: the author is the playwright behind the Broadway musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood—and those of a
certain age might remember his Top 40 hit “Escape (The The Piña Colada Song).”
Robert W. Gordon, Professor of Law, Emeritus, George Orwell: A Life by Bernard Crick
I bought this book 40 years ago but never read it until just now, and had to read it straight through—it’s so good. Crick is a well-known British political scientist and Labour Party stalwart. I got to know him a bit when I was a Harvard undergraduate and he was a visiting professor. He entertained students in his Adams House room with irreverent Labour songs, like “We’ll make Winston Churchill smoke a Woodbine* every day…We’ll auction Lady Astor at her own church bazaar, When the Red Revolution comes.” (*The first cheap cigar mass-produced for working-class consumers.)
This massive biography is wonderfully clear and acute, especially on how experience formed Orwell’s political views. His schooling and work as a British imperial policeman in Burma gave Orwell his distaste for autocracy; his reporting on lower-class and working-class life (The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937) his socialist convictions; his stint as a soldier in a left-wing militia in the Spanish Civil War – betrayed and attacked by Soviet Communists for deviationism–his hatred for totalitarianism of both Fascist and Communist varieties. He lived most of his life on the edge of poverty, having to sell hundreds of essays and reviews to pay the bills, achieving prosperity from sales of 1984 and Animal Farm (initially rejected by most publishers) only as he was dying. Some of those occasional essays on politics and literature are among the finest prose works in the English language.
William B. Gould IV, Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus, recommends Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America by Chris Murphy, Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber, Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World by Jaz Brisack, and Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life by Dusty Baker
The books that I’m reading fall into three categories, and the first is political: Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America lays out a public and personal philosophy which are dear to me. The author, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, is one of those special people we are lucky to have in public service. He speaks in the tone that I remember emanating from Adlai Stevenson, and based upon the thoughtfulness, good sense, and compassion, I’m hopeful that the country will have the chance to hear him more in ’28, along with the governors of Kentucky and Illinois.
I’ve also enjoyed Noam Scheiber’s Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class, the story of a working class, college-educated union organizational campaign at Starbucks, the plight of diminishing opportunities for college graduates, and the ability of a major employer to flout (thus far) American labor law. In this connection, I’ve just started Jaz Brisack’s Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World, which is a firsthand examination of some of the same events with the same employer.
Finally, I’ve begun the very readable Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life by my friend of 35 years, Dusty Baker, former outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves, and former San Francisco Giants manager (and manager for four other teams). You won’t put this memoir down without a sense of this larger-than-life personality and his friendship with people of all backgrounds. It’s a good, fluid, and easy read that provides the reader (including even non-baseball fans) with some of the awe that I’ve always felt for this principled, charismatic guy.
Henry T. Greely, Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, recommends King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson, Herbert Hoover and Stanford University by George H. Nash, Every Living Creature: How Xenotransplantation Will Change Our Lives by Joshua D. Mezrich, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, and Notes on Infinity: A Novel by Austin Taylor
I’m recommending five books I read in the last six months. In January, I read Scott Anderson’s history, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution. Its subtitle is “A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation”—the book was unexpectedly timely. I’ve been reading a lot about Stanford history lately and was quite taken with a short monograph by George H. Nash called Herbert Hoover and Stanford University. It taught me a lot about Hoover’s many roles with the University, for good and for ill, but always with commitment. In my scholarly field, I greatly enjoyed Joshua D. Mezrich’s Every Living Creature: How Xenotransplantation Will Change Our Lives. This explains, through engaging stories about people, how organs from genetically edited pigs will be in many of our futures.
And I’ll end with two novels, one old and one new. By chance, I fell into the first mystery novel ever written in English, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone. I was surprised how much I liked it, and by its modern voice. And, last but not least, I recommend Notes on Infinity: A Novel by Austin Taylor. This first novel, set about a decade ago in a biotech start-up, seems very loosely based on the rise and fall of Theranos. I found it gripping—and enjoyed the chance to chat with its author, who has just completed her first year as our J.D. student. (I’m happy to report that she liked it.)
Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law, recommends The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Paul Offit and Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service edited by Michael Lewis
The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Paul Offit. One of the great things about being at Stanford is our colleagues from across the university. Steve Goodman, from Stanford School of Medicine, recommended this book as we were discussing the public’s declining trust in science and the government in preparation for Steve’s coming to the class I was co-teaching on “America at 250.” It’s an amazing story about the development of the polio vaccine, how 200,000 people were inadvertently injected with live, virulent polio virus during the first wave of vaccinations, and how that tragedy and the lawsuits that followed shaped U.S. vaccination policy. And I learned why Franklin Roosevelt is on the dime!
Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service edited by Michael Lewis. A wonderful reminder of all the wonderful things the government does, told through the stories of an astonishing range of public servants—everything from the superintendent of the National Cemetery Administration to the chief innovation officer of the National Archives to a recently arrived paralegal at the Antitrust Division. The book inspired me with how these folks strive to make the United States, as one chapter quotes from the Constitution, a “more perfect Union,” and angered me with how the current administration is waging war on the career civil service.
Orin Kerr, Stella W. & Ira S. Lillick Professor of Law, recommends The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer
It brings medieval England to life by imagining what you would experience if you suddenly found yourself there (and then). It covers things like the culture, what people wore, how they traveled, their views of health and hygiene—and of course, the legal system. It’s a great read.
Mark A. Lemley, William H. Neukom Professor of Law, recommends Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
The premise is ridiculous (a major character is a talking cat named Princess Donut), but this series is entertaining even for people who don’t do fantasy or swords and sorcery. It will draw you in and you will be left wanting more.
Curtis J. Milhaupt, William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law, recommends London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe
True crime thriller meets travelogue on London’s dark side and the characters who inhabit it, by a renowned investigative journalist. A great summer read for Londonphiles.
Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, Deane F. Johnson Professor of Law, recommends The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 by Jonathan Mahler and
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
This spring, I thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan Mahler’s The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990. Mahler is a journalist who weaves together some of the stories that transformed New York City in the late 1980s—including through personalities like Al Sharpton, Spike Lee, Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani—in ways that feel very relevant to current debates over issues ranging from policing to housing to public health.
I also highly recommend Kiran Desai’s Booker-shortlisted The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. This multigenerational saga and love story primarily follows two young Indians across India, New York City, and other places as they deal with family expectations, artistic aspirations, and different forms of loneliness. At nearly 700 pages, it isn’t a quick read, but I savored every bit of it—it manages to be both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving.
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