340-349: Law. Out of Order, by Sandra Day O'Connor

There's real estate law and tax law and criminal law. There's the Constitution and courts, from the one downtown to that one in the marble hall in Washington DC. There are defense attorneys and prosecuting attorneys and defendants and convicts and prisons. And they are all found right here, in 340-349. I could have read any number of books about sensational trials or notorious attorneys, and, sadly, there was almost a whole shelf just for people who were convicted but later discovered to be innocent.

I brought home a book about the constitution called Me the People: One Man's Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America by Kevin Bleyer, but it was very snarky and silly, so I didn't read it. I also brought home a book surveying cases that test the relationship between church and state, Holy Hullabaloos, by Jay Wexler, but it was also weirdly snarky, and in these troubled times, I didn't think I needed to be *more* cynical about our federal government. 


But Jay Wexler is not just a joke cracker-- he's also a number cruncher who, apparently, at one point combed through transcripts of Supreme Court hearings counting the incidents of Justices getting laughs (Scalia won). This factoid and a reference to it at Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing find their way into the book I actually did finish, Sandra Day O'Connor's Out of Order. The link will take you to a review so accurate that I will not repeat all the criticisms contained therein. I can only say in defense of this book that I did not read it as such. I got the audio, read by O'Connor herself. She is from Texas, and her reading voice reminds me very much of that of the highly intelligent, pioneering, professional women in my family, so it was very pleasant to let her tell me random stories while I drove to work. I do not think I could have finished this book on paper! 

However, I'm glad I did get through it, because it certainly was interesting to get some perspective on the history of the Court. The main thing I learned is that the role of the Supreme Court has really changed over the years, and that a few Justices have been pretty obviously incompetent-- highly partisan, possibly even corrupt-- and yet, the Republic has survived some kind of way. There is hope for us yet!