Well, don't I feel like an asshole. For the better part of ten years, I've been "doing" the Fifty Books Project, and for most of that time I (and, ostensibly Christopher) have lived with the quiet shame of posting few, if any, book reviews, but squeaking by with a consistent year-end review. December of 2020 rolled around, I thought about my list, but I just didn't quite get pen to paper.
Then January 2021, I put if off, thinking, well, early February, will be okay.
And so on.
Anyway, with 2022 poking its head around the corner, and my stubborn refusal to ignore my 2020 books, I've decided to combine'em into one list. I'm going to think of this as my "pandemic" list, with all the naive optimism implied in hoping that my 2022 list will be disassociated from COVID.
Though it was weird to revisit my reading list going back to January 2020, which was both pre-pandemic, pre-parenthood, pre-2020 protests, and pre-an-eventful-for-my-family-Winter-2021. The person who read some of these books feels like a stranger to me now. Still, even that stranger is someone I might want to invite over for drinks in the future, so list his books I shall.
So, without more throat-clearing.
(10) 51 Imperfect Solutions by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton
Judge Sutton presents an argument that we focus too much on the federal constitution and federal constitutional claims; instead, we should place more emphasis on state constitutions and state constitutional claims. For my line of work, and I think generally for rights/litigation generally, I think Judge Sutton is correct. State constitutions are the future. (even renowned Constitutional Scholar Erwin Chemerinsky agrees). Judge Sutton was my introduction to state constitutionalism, and I've spent a fair amount of time doing my own reading, trying to get up to speed. I have a dream/aspiration of writing a law review article about the Nevada Constitution, and if I ever do, it'll be because I read this book. (I have a lot of aspirations that I never seem to meet (ahem, like my 2020 book list...), though, so this'll probably just be something I spend an insufferable amount of time talking about and not following through with).
(9) Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
One of the curiosities of my life is that The Satanic Verses is one of my all-time favorite books and I somehow (a) don't have a copy of it and (b) for almost a decade it was the only Rushdie I'd read. when I heard about Quichotte, a novel-length engagement with Don Quixote--another of my all-time favorites--I knew I had to pick it up. And it did not disappoint. It's a good novel on its own, but it's also a very clever commentary on Don Quixote. I need to read more Rushdie. Maybe I'll finally get around to Midnight's Children so the 8,000 people who recommended it can feel vindicated when I tell them they were right to effusively demand I drop everything to start reading it.
(8) Piranesi by Susanna Clark
I am hesitant to say anything about this book because everyone should experience it knowing as little as possible about it. But I can't resist one comment: I love mazes. Literary mazes, literal mazes, metaphorical mazes. Mazes just really do it for me. You could say I'm amazed by mazes.
(7) On the Courthouse Lawn by Sherrilyn Ifill
With how much she accomplished at LDF, it's very easy to overlook that Sherrilyn Ifill was an accomplished academic first. This book engages with "official" complicity in lynching. The title is a reference to how lynchings would often take place on the courthouse lawn, erecting an intentional symbolic connection between extrajudicial killing and the legal system. Though I find many arguments against the death penalty compelling, this book is a good source for the argument that we should abolish the death penalty solely on the basis of its deep historical connection to enforcing racial hierarchy.
(6) Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gesson
I generally dislike books that merely collect columns into a single volume. Regular columns, pressing with relevance and urgency when published, often age poorly after even a couple of months. However, I missed nearly all of Gesson's columns as they were being published (I harbor an unfair prejudice against The New Yorker that I can't be bothered to try to explain); Gesson's columns aged very well; indeed, they probably became more relevant in the closing days of the Trump Administration, January 6, and the aftermath of both. I read a number of books to help me think about our current political situation. Gesson's was the best and most informative (for me, anyway). I'm sure both would dislike and probably dispute the comparison, but Gesson's work reminds me of Arendt, and I tend to think of Gesson as the closest we've got to a contemporary Arendt.
(5) Master of the Senate by Robert Caro
I don't know what to say about this book except that Caro is an extraordinary writer. I started reading his Lyndon Johnson biographies because of a Paris Review interview where he said that he wasn't so much interested in Lyndon Johnson as he was about how power worked. The biographies are true to that, and I find them interesting because they engage with the very human question of how we choose leaders/are led/lead.
(4) Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality, edited by Toni Morrison
The only book that motivated me to make time to write a review in the last two years. This is a collection of essays written all engaging with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas. If someone were to ask for a single book to read about the Thomas Confirmation, I'd suggest this book, even over the more documentary books like Strange Justice (though Strange Justice is actually very good and worth reading too). This was my introduction to Toni Morrison's nonfiction writing, to Kimberle Crenshaw, and critical race theory (formally, anyway). (I know by typing those words, I risk being "canceled," but, like, what can you do, amirite?). A window into the debates surrounding the confirmation hearings, but also an extremely helpful primer on intersectionality, race, and sexual harassment.
(3) Thinking without a Banister by Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt's influence on me is so outsized at this point, I almost forgot to include this book on the list because I had so deeply internalized it that it felt like it went without saying. But, F it, right? It's 2022, maybe this is the year to say things that feel like they go without saying? I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone unless they already have a pretty deep interest in Arendt's thinking, but for people with an interest, it's a spectacular collection that is a good way of being introduced to her thinking in a big-picture way (as opposed, say, to her other books which tend to be more focused on their specific topics). I finished this in the first weeks of the little one's life, and I kind of love that my memory of this book will always be intertwined with that experience.
(2) America on Fire by Elizabeth Hinton
I really struggled with whether this was my top book, or the #2 spot. Ultimately, I'm putting it here: America on Fire is objectively the more important book, the better book, and the only book from the last two years that I'd actually tell anyone--regardless of interests or background--they should read. I cannot emphasize enough how important this book is, or how instrumental it is for how I understand the racial justice protests of 2020. Hinton identifies a long history of protest--what she terms "rebellion"--and a longstanding pattern related to those rebellions, what she calls "The Cycle." This cycle of police violence-->rebellion-->commissions-->more resources to law enforcement-->more police violence, it's a cycle we're seemingly stuck in on endless repeat. But, the book also offers some hope, by looking to some positive developments over the last couple of decades. If I were going to suggest one book from my list for other people to read, it would be this one. Also, if you read it, you can then go watch me do a zoom hang with Dr. Hinton for our local NLG Chapter.
(1) The Cycles of Constitutional Time by Jack Balkin and Presidential Leadership in Political Time by Stephen Skowronek
What a cop out, right?! Two books in the number one spot?! Who does this A-hole think he is?! Humor me, please. Presidential Leadership puts forth a theory of political time that is, effectively: voting coalitions rise and fall, and certain kinds of presidents rise and fall with those coalitions. There is a patter to this: a candidate will recognize that a certain kind of voting coalition can be created, and will "revolutionize" the politics of his time by catering to that coalition, and then giving the coalition what it wants. This regime will then, more or less, run things; even if the other party wins elections, the opposing party's identity is basically defined in opposition to the regime's. But as time moves forward, it gets harder and harder for the regime to keep the coalition together. The individual components of the coalition get harder and harder to satisfy: the regime's success, ironically, makes it harder to maintain. Presidents fall into certain archetypes based on where in the "political time" of the regime they fall. Skowronek's point is that you can't judge a president in the early part of the regime the same way you'd judge one at the end of a regime because the presidents are confronting different kinds of political challenges (putting together a regime v. maintaining one). Balkin's book builds off this theory by thinking about its implications for constitutional law, and how federal judges and theories of constitutional interpretation play into "political time" To distinguish his discussion from Skowronek's, he refers to this as "constitutional time." These books combined made for my top read of the last two years because, as my wife will tell, I won't shut up about them; I also can't stop thinking about them. Though many books have been helpful in thinking about our current moment, these two books for me have defined the major issues I've thought about over the last 2 years. They have been the most helpful in thinking about this current moment within the context of the long-term challenges of our constitutional republic. And, for me, thinking about how those long-term challenges are playing out in the current moment, has been helpful in my thinking trying to understand WTF is happening in this world. (So, even though I'd give Hinton credit for writing a better and more important book, for me, subjectively, it's these two that have dominated my thoughts). Because the two books really are companions of each other, I felt justified having them share my top spot.
Anyway, assuming Christopher doesn't give me the boot after another recalcitrant year of inactivity, I'm looking forward to following the blog into 2022, and maybe even writing a review or two now and again. If you made it this far, I'm sorry for my clumsy narrative voice and obnoxious taste in books. See you 'round, 50bookers!
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