Last week, the Red Mug Coffee Circle community came together to share what we were reading this summer, what we wanted to read this summer if the opportunity were to arise, and what we think other members of the Alberta legal community might want to read. Most of our community members love to read, but some felt that law school took away some of the joy they found in reading for relaxation. Others find that their current work-life configuration made uninterrupted immersion into books challenging. But we all agree that books are great and that curling up with a good book in a bit of downtime is a favourite pastime!
Are you looking for some reading recommendations for your summer break (or evenings or weekends)? I curated the reading suggestions into theme groups—but without having read all of them, my categorization may not be perfect! This list is shared from one lawyer bookworm to all of you.
Many of our lawyer-readers access books through their local libraries—much more cost-effective than my periodic splurges at a certain retailer. If you were to place holds on several of the books below that appeal to you, you have a good chance of getting enough reading material for the rest of the summer season, which for me involves sitting in an Adirondack chair in my yard, with my sunglasses, my dog and my book of the day. Do you, however it works for you!
Non-Fiction Reading
I am going to get this one out of the way first. Lawyers read a lot, every day. Sometimes the thought of reading something serious, or “good for us” in our free time feels too much like what we do all day, but many Assist readers enjoy some serious stuff, even over the summer.
Fiction is my go-to. I read non-fiction occasionally if I really want to know more about a topic, but I find that, unlike my fiction books, I rarely finish the non-fiction ones. Once I am about 80% though, I start feeling like my quest for information has been satisfied and then I never pick the book up (other than to stick it on a bookshelf after weeks of mouldering on a coffee or end table.)
But with fiction, you can’t leave the final 20% unread—there are plot twists, character development and closure that you have to experience. There are only a handful of fiction books that I have abandoned, usually due to unpleasantness of the subject matter.
However, some the titles below may shake up my reading plan. The Audacity To Be Queen piques my interest (even though I think they mean Elizabeth II and not the band). And I am curious about Baseball as The Road to God. Given that I know next to nothing about baseball, I might do better applying what I know about God to learning about baseball!
Without further ado, here are the non-fiction picks (with comments from our RMCC readers in brackets):
- The Audacity To Be Queen: The Unapologetic Art of Dreaming Big and Manifesting Your Most Fabulous Life, by Gina DeVee
- In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate
- Professional Spiritual and Pastoral Care, Newman Theological College
- It Burned Me All Down: a self-reflection on Big Law, Burnout, Mental Health and How to Build an Environment to Support a High-Performing Workplace by Erin Durant
- Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey by James Hollis
- The Happy Lawyer by Douglas Linder and Nancy Levit (I have this one in my office if anyone wants to borrow it—also The Flourishing Lawyer by Heidi Brown)
- Quit Like A Woman: The Radical Choice To Not Drink In A Culture Obsessed with Alcohol by Holly Whitaker
- Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Baseball as the Road to God by John Sexton (“Relates well to recovery programs!”)
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (“Bryan Stevenson does fantastic work!”)
- Justice Denied: The Law Versus Donald Marshall by Michael Harris
- The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Heath by Jennifer Fraser
- Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (“an excellent book about class and race in US, India, Europe etc.”)
- Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, A White Town and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson
- Spare by Prince Harry
- The True History of the Kelly Gang: A Novel by Peter Carey “(If you ever wanted to gain an understanding of someone who is antagonistic to law, and rules…”) (Fantastic read but you really need to be good at grammar so you can deal with the lack of punctuation—lol!”)
- The Eleven Missing Days by Jared Cade (“non-fiction about when Agatha Christie disappeared—fascinating!”)
- Feeling Seen: Reconnecting in a Disconnected World by Jody Carrington
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (“non-fiction about how the brain works!”)
- The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell
Fiction
Welcome to my comfort (and comforting) zone. Each time I looked up a book title mentioned by RMCC folks to confirm that we had it right and the correct spelling of the author’s name, I was mentally adding it to my personal reading list.
Right now, I am re-reading Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy (Wolf Hall, Bringing Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light), the story of how a scrappy blacksmith’s son becomes King Henry VIII’s most trusted advisor. Mantel tells this story through emotionally evocative vignettes which leave you seeing, feeling, and even smelling, Tudor London.
But one of our peer support volunteer-readers mentioned this series as an example of clever lawyering (and accounting since the professions were not separated or even regulated then!) When I came down with a nasty head cold last week, I decided to re-read the series (okay, I was a bit low on new books and didn’t feel well enough to venture out) from the lawyering angle. I armed myself with a pencil and underlined comments relating to lawyerly virtues or practice, and they are fascinating. My background is in corporate law, so I saw Cromwell progress from being a smart young lawyer being trained under Cardinal Wolsey, evolving into the General Counsel role upon Wolsey’s fall from grace, and then effectively becoming Chief Operating Officer role, all while dealing with history’s toughest client who has a penchant for beheading those who offend him.
Besides providing a fascinating insight into lawyers in the sixteenth century, Mantel has another intersection with the Assist community: mental health. Mantel was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the 1970s where she was treated with antipsychotic medications which caused psychotic symptoms. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with endometriosis—a completely physiological condition, and a hysterectomy resolved her medical symptoms. She won the Booker Prize for both Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies, which is an amazing feat, and was longlisted for The Mirror and the Light, although I can’t imagine that her literary success actually reduced her emotional pain from her misdiagnosed psychiatric care.
If you are looking for something with substance but perhaps less dense than over 1900 pages of Cromwell’s life, may I recommend Amor Towle’s A Gentleman from Moscow, my favourite gift book?
I wish that I knew enough about the books below, but I have included comments from the group chat where possible. Please peruse at your pleasure, however.
- Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie
- Washington Black by Esi Eduygan (“I like fiction with important social and cultural issues woven throughout”)
- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dyck (and the Netflix series based on this book which visualizes Germany and Japan winning World War II with the US being split between the two victors)
- I Robot by Isaac Asimov
- The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield (“The first ‘fun’ book I have read in years, It’s set during the Apollo space missions and it’s great!”)
- Sparring Partners by John Grisham
- The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
- Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (“This book and The Only Good Indians are Indigenous horror novels—upset spirits, not ghosts or slasher stuff.”)
- Five Little Indians by Michelle Good (“A great reconciliation novel!”)
- The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
- All the Broken Places by John Boyne
- Prima Facie by Suzie Miller
- Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty
- The Final Case by David Guterson
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- Department Q series (there are nine!) by Jussi Adler-Olsen
- We Are the Light by Matthew Quick
- Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah
- Hollow Bamboo by William Ping
- August into Winter by Guy Vanderhaeghe
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
- The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
- Indian Horse, Medicine Walk and Starlight and anything else by Richard Wagemese
- Kiara and the Sun by Haruki Murakami
- We Measure the Earth with our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama (“fantastic novel about exiled Tibet by a Canadian-Tibetan author.”)
- The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (“for some fun, read this series…about senior citizens solving crime in a small English village.”)
- Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (“If you want a novel that is incredibly easy to read if you’re tired!”)
- Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty: A History of The Plantagenets by Ben Hubbard
- A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
- Wolf Hall, Bringing Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light By Hilary Mantel
Guilty Pleasures
- Anything by John Grisham (“very good for escaping with no effort!”)
- Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series (“about operations by a highly skilled Israeli secret service")
- Call the Midwife series (Call the Midwife: a True Story of the East End in the 1950s, Shadows of the Workhouse, and Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth). RMCC Participant says, “utterly fascinating from the first sentence to the last!”
Children’s Books
- I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
Other Media in Lieu of Books
- Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets on Acorn TV
- Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies on Apple TV
- The Tudors on Apple TV and CBC Gem
- Lucy Worsley’s history series on BBC Select
- Janet King, on Acorn TV (about an Australian prosecutor)
- And Audible memoirs read by authors
Happy Reading! Please join us next time we chat about our favourite books.
Loraine