Summer Reading For Supreme Court Justices

Columnist Tamara Tabo offers customized reading recommendations for each member of the Court.

Now that the hurly-burly of October Term 2014 is in the rear view, United States Supreme Court Justices have the opportunity to step away from their chambers. For a few precious months, they can travel, teach, write books. Finally, the Justices have some time to themselves. Maybe read a little fiction. Maybe some take the time to work on themselves, a little personal growth time. Maybe explore their options. After all, a Justice is more than the sum of his or her Court opinions.

Below are some helpful suggestions for each Supreme Court Justice’s summer reading list.

Cert petitions will wait.

Chief Justice John Roberts

Suggested Reading:

The Day the Crayons Quit and its long-awaited sequel, The Day the Crayons Came Home, by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers.

A synopsis for those not familiar with the narrative:

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“Poor Duncan just wants to color. But when he opens his box of crayons, he finds only letters, all saying the same thing: His crayons have had enough! They quit! Beige Crayon is tired of playing second fiddle to Brown Crayon. Black wants to be used for more than just outlining. Blue needs a break from coloring all those bodies of water. And Orange and Yellow are no longer speaking—each believes he is the true color of the sun.

What can Duncan possibly do to appease all of the crayons and get them back to doing what they do best?”

No one knows how hard it is to appease all of the crayons Justices and get them back to doing what they do best like John Roberts. Sometimes a consensus builder needs to go back to basics.

See also . . .

50 Ways to Support Lesbian and Gay Equality: The Complete Guide to Supporting Family, Friends, Neighbors or Yourself… edited by Meredith Maran.

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. One of the novel’s themes involves the philosophical and legal questions around engineering court opinions in order to give the result the judge might prefer for pragmatic reasons. After the Chief’s decisions to uphold Obamacare, including this Term’s King v. Burwell, this might be a topic for Roberts to contemplate over the summer.

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Justice Antonin Scalia

Suggested Reading:

Eeeee Eee Eeee: A Novel by Tao Lin.

Shoplifting From American Apparel by Tao Lin.

Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn.

The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey, & Song: A Spirited Look at Catholic Life & Lore from the Apocalypse to Zinfandel by John Zmirak.

Some of Scalia’s opinions this term were magnificent, if acerbic. Still, even fans of the Court’s finest rhetorician may be worried by his bitterness of late. Scalia seems fed up. I mean, more so than usual.

This summer, Justice Scalia should explore his intellect’s less linear side. The selections above by post-post-modern fiction writer Tao Lin might make Scalia’s eyes bleed, but they might also expand his views on the flexibility of language. At minimum, it should make Justice Scalia grateful that none of his colleagues’ treatment of language is as nontraditional as it could be, as Lin shows by example.

If all else fails, Justice Scalia can brush up on his stress reduction techniques by picking up either of the latter two suggestions. The first of the two is a classic of the mindfulness movement. The second is, well, self-explanatory.

See also . . .

Anything else by Tao Lin.

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. Because he might be inspired to broaden his hiring practices. (Except for the bit about that Loyola clerk.)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

Suggested Readings:

The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time edited by Leslie Pockell.

Justice Kennedy should have had this on his desk while drafting his majority opinion in Obergefell. That way, he could have cited to something with at least some historical authority.

See also . . .

Lochner v. New York.
Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. For the gay and lesbian subplots.

Justice Clarence Thomas

Suggested Readings:

The 2015 Good Sam RV Travel and Savings Guide: The Must-Have RV Travel Resource by Good Sam Enterprises.

Justice Thomas and his bride Ginni proudly spend part of their summers touring the country in their motor coach. The Justice has made a point in interviews to differentiate between a motor coach — which is built on a tour bus frame — and an RV — which is built on a standard truck frame. Tight fidelity to text seems appropriate for a man of CT’s judicial philosophy, though the rest of us probably can’t or don’t care to tell the difference. In any case, the man likes recreational vehicles, broadly construed.

See also . . .

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. For Harvetta Chambers, if nothing else.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Suggested Reading:

Hard Choices by Hilary Rodham Clinton.

Let’s face it. RBG is not stepping down from the bench. The figurative gavel is going to be pried from her cold, dead hands or not at all. But might she be willing to step over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from One First Street? If she would, Clinton is her stiffest competition. God help Hilary.

See also . . .

Five Books for Children (The English Roses, Mr. Peabody’s Apples, Yakov and the Seven Thieves, The Adventures of Abdi, and Lotsa de Casha) by Madonna. This is what a diva’s second act can look like. RBG, beware.

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. Without women with grit like RBG, women like Judge Christina Wong Stinson might never have been.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer

Suggested Readings:

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.

Justice Breyer is regarded as an aficionado of admin law. What better way to rekindle love of bureaucratic machinery than Wallace’s posthumously published tale of Internal Revenue Service employees in Peoria, Illinois in 1985?

The Pale King includes this insight, helpful to middling bureaucrats, if not Supreme Court Justices:

“To be, in a word, unborable…. it is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”

See also . . .

Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama.

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. Justice Breyer may have served on the First Circuit when he was on the Court of Appeals, but he was born and raised in California, and his brother Charles sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He can appreciate the setting of Supreme Ambitions.

Justice Samuel Alito

Suggested Reading:

How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable: Getting Your Point Across with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin.

One of the more intriguing bits in Obergefell was the curious conservative vote split. Justices Scalia and Thomas joined each other’s dissents as well as the separate dissents of the Chief Justice and Justice Alito. Notably, Alito did not join the Roberts dissent or vice versa. This detail might hint at a growing divide on the Court, with Roberts becoming increasingly accommodating and centrist and Alito becoming increasingly . . . cranky.

See also . . .

Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto Che Guevara. Also, The U.S. Army Guerrilla Warfare Handbook by the Department of the Army.

In the oral arguments for Glossip v. Gross, Justice Alito compared the efforts of anti-death-penalty advocates to guerrilla warfare. His rhetorical question would later guide the majority opinion in the case.

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. If everyone else is reading Supreme Ambitions this summer, how will Justice Alito keep up with lunch conversation in the Fall if he doesn’t read it too?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America by Rafael Edward Cruz aka “Ted.”

Justice Sotomayor should avail herself of the story of a different sort of Hispanic American. That’s embracing diversity.

See also . . .

Salsa Dancing in Gym Shoes: Exploring Cross-Cultural Missteps with Latinos in the Classroom by Tammy Oberg De La Garza and Alyson L. Lavigne.

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. The character of Judge Marta Solís Deleuze might well be a version of Justice Sotomayor. One of the book’s character’s describes Barzun as a taskmaster over her clerks, but also “a champion for progressive causes” who has “ruled in favor of criminal defendants who have been railroaded, immigrants who are about to be deported, protesters who have been victims of police brutality, when no other judge will stand up for them.” And, of course, Deleuze is also “a wise Latina” who is “young enough and ethnic enough to someday get traction as a Supreme Court” nominee.

Justice Elena Kagan

Suggested Readings:

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud

Justice Kagan delighted comic book fans when she dropped lots of Spider-Man allusions into her majority opinion in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment.

Word on the street is that Justice Kagan is a comics fan herself. Whether or not she is, she has set expectations high for future court opinions involving the world of graphic novels and superheroes. However likely that may be. McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a classic introduction to the history of the medium and to the reasons for taking comics every bit as seriously as one does conventional art or literature.

See also . . .

Supreme Ambitions by David Lat. Because the former dean of Harvard Law School is bound to recognize students (and their neuroses) in Audrey Coyne and her co-clerks.

There you have it. Some reading material to get the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court away from the grind of of the term and ready for OT 2015. More suggestions always available upon request.

(Ed. note: Lat here. All Amazon links are affiliate links. Also, for the record, I did not bribe or coerce Tamara into pimping my novel — but I’m not complaining that she did!)


Tamara Tabo is a summa cum laude graduate of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the school’s law review. After graduation, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She currently heads the Center for Legal Pedagogy at Texas Southern University, an institute applying cognitive science to improvements in legal education. You can reach her at tabo.atl@gmail.com.