Bibliophilia: the reading list for book lovers
Bibliophilia is a weekly post of recommended reading for law students and lawyers. The list will comprise both fiction and non-fiction books with as much variety as possible. We’re also happy to take reader submissions from you so get reading!
Title: Can You Stiff Your Divorce Lawyer?
Author: Portia Porter
Genre: (partially) Non-fiction, humor, legal insights
Through a mix of cautionary tales, inside information, and elaborate tongue-in-cheek instructions, Portia Porter exposes the Achilles heel of the legal profession: if you don’t want to pay your lawyers, there is little they can do about it. In the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” this hilarious instruction manual for grifters should be required reading for any law student, and for anyone contemplating divorce litigation…. [source]
Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Genre: Fiction, dystopian, classic, sci-fi
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books…. [source]
Title: Ashes & Sparks: Essays On Law & Justice
Author: Stephen Sedley
Genre: Non-fiction, essays, law
As a practising barrister, the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Sedley wrote widely on legal and non-legal matters, and continued to do so after becoming a judge in 1992…. reflections on what has transpired since or an explanation of the British legal and political context that originally prompted it. Covering the history, engineering and architecture of the justice system, their common theme relates to the author’s experiences as a barrister and judge, most notably in relation to the constitutional changes which have emerged in the last twenty years in the United Kingdom. [source]
Title: Big Law
Author: Lindsay Cameron
Genre: Fiction, young adult, drama
The Devil Wears Prada meets One L, BIGLAW provides an insider’s view of the cut-throat world of big New York law firms….Mackenzie Corbett has always dreamed of living in New York City. Now, almost two years into her job as an associate at a premier Manhattan law firm, she’s living her fantasy…With the opportunity to secure a prestigious secondment on line, the overachiever in her is determined to endure whatever it takes to close the biggest deal in the firm’s history. But when Mackenzie finds herself the focus of a devastating investigation her dream job begins spiraling into a nightmare. [source]
Title: When I Wear My Alligator Boots
Author: Shaylih Muehlmann
Genre: Non-fiction
…examines how the lives of dispossessed men and women are affected by the rise of narcotrafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the war on drugs: despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, for the rural poor in Mexico’s north, narcotrafficking offers one of the few paths to upward mobility and is a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige….the author explores the everyday reality of the drug trade by living alongside its low-level workers… [source]
Title: Tell It To The World
Author: Elliot Behar
Genre: Non-fiction, history
On April 5, 1999, Serbian police found a truck half-submerged in the Danube River. When they looked inside, they found it filled with human bodies. Following orders, they hid the truck and its contents. Two weeks later, on the other side of Serbia, the same thing happened. The full picture would only emerge years later, when the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia investigated and prosecuted the chief architects of the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. These cases, which formally came to a close in 2014, exposed a secret campaign to hide terrible crimes by transporting and concealing the bodies of the dead. In Tell It to the World, Eliott Behar, a former war crimes prosecutor, tells the true story of what unfolded. He examines the causes and consequences of mass violence, identifying a powerful and disturbing connection between the justice we seek and the injustices we commit. [source]
Title: Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do?
Author: Michael J. Sandel
Genre: Non-fiction, lecture, law
What are our obligations to others as people in a free society? Should government tax the rich to help the poor? Is the free market fair? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? Is killing sometimes morally required? …Michael J. Sandel’s “Justice” course is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard. Up to a thousand students pack the campus theater to hear Sandel relate the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day… This book is a searching, lyrical exploration of the meaning of justice, one that invites readers of all political persuasions to consider familiar controversies in fresh and illuminating ways….Sandel dramatizes the challenge of thinking through these conflicts, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well…. [source]
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