The Nine
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
A well-written and well-documented look at our Supreme Court. The author explores the personalities, the cases and political landscape that have shaped the court over the last 30 years. The best non-fiction book I've read this year. Reminds me of another great book, The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court, I read about the Supreme Court some years ago.
I found the bits of information on Justice David Souterto be very interesting. How does a person who leads such a low-tech lifestyle end up on the Supreme Court? He writes with a fountain pen, moves his chair around his office to catch the light. Does not use use email, doesn't have a cell phone, answering machine or television. When he arrived at the Supreme Court he had never heard of Diet Coke. In 2003 he reveal that he had never heard of the group The Supremes. Yet he has written the most technical opinion on file sharing.
Synopses
Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin takes you into the chambers of the most important — and secret — legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, and reveals the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.
Just in time for the 2008 presidential election — where the future of the Court will be at stake — Toobin reveals an institution at a moment of transition, when decades of conservative disgust with the Court have finally produced a conservative majority, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, presidential power, and church-state relations.
Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities — from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore — and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.
The Nine is the book bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin was born to write. A CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer, no one is more superbly qualified to profile the nine justices.