SUGGESTED FICTION

Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke, introduced by Alexander McCall Smith, illustrated by Finn Campbell-Notman (London: The Folio Society, 2013).

Eric Ambler, Epitaph for a Spy, introduced by Stella Rimington, illustrated by Paul Blow (London: The Folio Society, 2013).

J. G. Ballard, The Drowned World, introduced by Will Self, illustrated by James Boswell (London: The Folio Society, 2013).

Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising, illustrated by Laura Carlin (London: The Folio Society, 2012).

Susan Cooper, The Grey King, illustrated by Laura Carlin (London: The Folio Society, 2012).

Susan Cooper, Greenwitch, illustrated by Laura Carlin (London: The Folio Society, 2012).

Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone, illustrated by Laura Carlin (London: The Folio Society, 2011).

Susan Cooper, The Silver on the Tree, illustrated by Laura Carlin (London: The Folio Society, 2012).

Andrew Lang, ed., The Crimson Fairy Book, with an introduction by Carol Ann Duffy, paintings and decorations by Tim Stevens (London: The Folio Society, 2011).

Andrew Lang, ed., The Grey Fairy Book, with an introduction by Kate Bernheimer, paintings and decorations by Lauren Nassef (London: The Folio Society, 2013).

Andrew Lang, ed., The Orange Fairy Book, with an introduction by Sara Maitland, paintings and decorations by Tomislav Tomic (London: The Folio Society, 2013).

Luo Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel (volumes 1-4), translated and introductory essay by Moss Roberts, introduction by Ma Jian (London: The Folio Society, 2013) ("At times the forces of yin and yang that govern nature fail, and day and darkness seem as one, turning the vast space into a fearful monochrome. Everywhere the fog, stock-still. Not even a cartload can be spotted. But the sound of gong or drum carries far." Id at 510.).

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, introduced by Selina Hastings, illustrated by Michael Kirkham (London: The Folio Society, 2011).

Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast (The Gormenghast Trilogy), illustrations by Peter Harding (London: The Folio Society, 1992) ("He ran as though to obey an order. And this was so, though he knew nothing of it. He ran in the acknowledgement of a law as old as the laws of his home. The law of flesh and blood. The law of longing. The law of change. The law of youth. The law that separates the generations, that draws the child from his mother, the boy from his father, the youth from both." "And it was the law of quest. The law that few obey for lack of valour. The craving of the young for the unknown and all that lies beyond the tenuous skyline." Id. at 441.).

Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone (The Gormenghast Trilogy), illustrations by Peter Harding (London: The Folio Society, 1992) ("Mr Crabcalf was propped up, not againt pillows or a bolster of straw, but by books; and every book was the same book with its dark grey spine. There at his back, banked up like a wall of bricks, were the so-called 'remainders' of an epic, long ago written, long ago forgotten, except by its author, for his lifework lay at his shoulder-blades." "Out of the five hundred copies printed thirty years ago by a publisher long since bankrupt, only twelve copies had been sold." "Around his bed, three hundred identical volumes were erected . . . like walls or ramparts, protecting him from --what? There was also  a cache beneath the bed, that gathered dust and sliver-fish." "He lay with his past beside him, beneath him, and at his head: his past, five hundred times repeated, covered with dust and silver-fish. His head, like Jacob's in the famous stone, rested against the volumes of lost breath. The ladder from his miserable bed reached up to heaven. But there were no angels." Id. at 102.).

Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan (The Gormenghast Trilogy), introduction by Michael Moorcock, illustrations by Peter Harding (London: The Folio Society, 1992) ("The loss of his library had been a blow so pulverizing that he had not yet begun to suffer the torment that was later to come to him. He was still dazed and bewildered, but he sensed instinctively that his only hope lay in turning his mind as often as possible from the tragedy and in applying himself unstintingly to the routine of the day. As the weeks passed by, however, he found it more and more difficult to keep the horror of that night from his mind. Books which he loved not only for their burden, but intrinsically, for varying qualities of paper and print, kept reminding him that they were no longer to be fingered and read. Not only were the books lost and the thoughts in the books, but what was to him, perhaps, the most searching loss of all, the hours or rumination which lifted him above himself and bore him upon their muffled and enormous wings. Not a day passed by he was reminded of some single volume, or of a series of works, whose very position on the walls was so clearly indented in his mind. He had taken refuge from this raw emptiness in a superhuman effort to concentrate his mind exclusively upon the sting of ceremonies which he had daily to perform. He had not tried to rescue a single volume from the shelves, for even while the flames leapt around him he knew that every sentence that escaped the fire would be unreadable and bitter as gall, something to taunt him endlessly. It was better to have the cavity in his heart yawning and completely empty than mocked by a single volume. Yet not a day passed but he knew his grip had weaker." Id. at 275-276.).

V. S. Pritchett,  The Camberwell Beauty and Other Stories, selected and introduced by William Trevor, illustrated by Clifford Harper (London: The Folio Society, 2011).

Mary Shelley, The Last Man, introduced by Sarah Hall, with paintings by Caspar David Friedrich (London: The Folio Society, 2012) ("The acquisition of unknown languages was too tedious an occupation, for one who referred every expression to the universe within, and read not, as many do, for the mere sake of filling up time; but who was still questioning herself and her author, moulding every idea in a thousand ways, ardently desirous for the discovery of truth in every sentence. She sought to improve her understanding; mechanically her heart and dispositions became soft and gentle under this benign discipline. After awhile she discovered, that amidst all her newly acquired knowledge, her own character, which formerly she fancied that she thoroughly understood, became the first in rank among the terrae incognito, the pathless wilds of a country that had no chart. Erringly and strangely she began the task of self-examination with self-condemnation. And then again she became aware of her own excellencies, and began to balance with juster scales the shades of good and evil. I, who longed beyond words, to restore her to the happiness it was still in her power to enjoy, watched with anxiety the result of these internal proceedings." Id. at 144-145.).

John Wyndham, The Chrysalids, introduced by Adam Roberts, illustrated by Patrick Leger (London: The Folio Society, 2010) ("The living form defies evolution at its peril; if it does not adapt, it will be broken. The idea of completed man is the supreme vanity: the finished image is a sacrilegious myth." Id. at 178.).

John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, introduced by Adam Roberts, illustrated by Patrick Leger (London: The Folio Society, 2010) ("When a day you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere." Id. at 3.).

John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos, introduced by Adam Roberts, illustrated by Patrick Leger (London: The Folio Society, 2010) ("If you want to keep alive in the jungle, you must live as the jungle does. . ." Id. at 203.).

STRIVING FOR THE UNREACHABLE WHOLENESS

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity (Boston, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 2014) ("Striving is everywhere in the literature of romanticism; in the prologue to Faust, Goethe's God tells Mephistopheles: 'Es irrt der Mensh so lang er strebt.' 'Man errs so long as he strives', and so, as long as we are on earth, we human beings are erring and striving. [] The idea of life as a striving for the infinite, a search to transcend the inevitable resistance of the world, appealed to the spirit of romanticism that developed as the first great cultural reaction to the Enlightenment, a movement in which Fichte, the philosopher, and Goethe, the poet and savant, were central. So, too, did the yearning for wholeness, for the project of bringing the superficially conflicting elements of reality into a unity; a project whose completion is, of course, forever beyond our grasp. For romanticism, striving's aim was a pleasingly unreachable wholeness." Id. at 55-56.).

THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN YOGA AS PHILOSOPHY AND YOGA AS POSTURAL PRACTICE

David Gordon White, The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2014) ("In the United States, where an estimated seventeen million people regularly attend yoga classes [note: this is the yoga subculture], there has been a growing trend to regulate the training of yoga instructors, the people who do the teaching in the thousands of yoga centers and studios spread across the country [note: this is corporate yoga]. Often, teacher training includes mandatory instruction in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. This is curious to say the least, given the fact that the Yoga Sutra is as relevant to yoga as it is taught and practiced today as understanding the workings of a combustion engine is to driving a car." Id. at 1. From the bookjacket: "White brings to life the improbable cast of characters whose interpretations--and misappropriation--of the Yoga Sutra led to its revered place in popular culture today. Tracing the remarkable trajectory of this enigmatic work, White's exhaustively researched book also demonstrates why the yoga of India's past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today.").

ACCOMMODATING RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN AMERICA'S PUBLIC LIFE

George M. Marsden, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief (New York: Basic Books, 2014) (From the bookjacket: "A groundbreaking reappraisal of the debates that shaped the country's postwar history, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment reveals that both the left and the right proved unable to provide for religious diversity in public life--a failure that continues to define American culture and politics today.").

STEFAN ZWEIG

George Prochnik, The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World (New York: Overlook Press, 2014) ("E. M. Forster recommended Zweig's Erasmus to his English audience as a 'brilliant and true' historical study--as well as a personal meditation by a writer who was himself consumed by an eternal theme: 'Thought and Understanding' or 'Passion and Power'? Though Zweig didn't hide the faults of Erasmus, who 'was not brave' and 'disliked defining his attitude,' or vilify Luther, he showed why, in the long term, tolerance was the 'major instrument in the upward movement ' of humanity. 'It is the power to understand people not the power to boss them that distinguishes us from the apes,' Forster wrote, adding that Stefan Zweig himself had lived by this principle." Id. at 128. Also see A. O. Scott, "Man Without a Country, NYT Book Review,.Sunday, 6/15/2014.).

A SYSTEM THAT WILL NOT ALLOW SELF-DESTRUCTION

 Michael Cunningham, The Snow Queen: A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014) ("Didn't Flaubert execute Emma for her crime? . . . He was a moralist in a larger sense. He was, if anything, writing about a French bourgeois so stifling, so enamored of respectable mediocrity . . . [] It is, Barrett knows, a romance, and a perverse one at that, the whole notion of a house brought down by pettiness and greed. It's nineteenth-century. Citizens of the twenty-first century can max out their credit cards, they can extend their limits, but actual destruction, death by extravagance, is no longer possible. You work something out with the credit card company. You can always, if it comes to that, declare bankruptcy, and start over. No one is going to swallow a fistful of cyanide over a pair of ill-purchased motorcycle boot. It's comforting, of course it is, but it's also, somehow, discouraging to live within a system of that won't permit you to self-destruct." Id. at 89-91.).

HEATHEN??

John Demos, The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic (New York: Knopf, 2014) (It is impossible to tell the story of America without speaking of race and racial conflict. Here white versus red, white americans versus native americans.).

SUMMER QUARTER SUGGESTED READINGS FOR LAW STUDENTS, Part 1

Daniel Justin Herman, Hell on the Range: A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West (The Lamar Series in Western History) (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2010) (see blog post of 4/13/2014).

Lane Kenworthy, Social Democratic America (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2014) ("[M]odern social democracy means a commitment to extensive use of government policy to promote economic security, expanded opportunity, and ensure rising living standards for all. But it aims to do so while facilitating freedom, flexibility, and market dynamism." Id. at 9.).

Elizabeth Kolsky, Colonial Justice in British India: White Violence and the Rule of Law (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society) (New York: Cambridge U. Press, 2010, 2011) (see blog post of 4/22/2014).

Kenneth A. Manaster, The American Legal System and Civic Engagement: Why We All Should Think Like Lawyers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) (see blog posted date 5/29/2014).

Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage: A Novel (New York; Ecco, 2014) ("'Ms. McSwain--'Sabbath.' Tell me, do you respect the law?' 'No.' 'No?' 'Well, I'd have to ask--which law? Is there a single, singular law?' The Investigator nodded approvingly. ''Good! I like your skepticism. I like even that prissy little way you curl your lip--''Is there a single, singular law?' " Id. at 213-214. Also, see Liesl Schillinger, "Lonely Hunter," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 2/2/2014.).

Ediberto Roman, Those Damned Immigrants: America's Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration, with a Foreword by Michael A. Olivas (New York: New York University Press, 2013) ("What will be undertaken in the forthcoming pages is more than merely engaging in retelling tales of woe. In terms of an overview of what is forthcoming, and perhaps at the risk of oversimplifying this herculean endeavor, this project aims to undertake and achieve what no single work has yet accomplished. It attempts, in one document, to first identify the leading attacks against undocumented immigrants; then, using empirical data, it will examine the validity of those attack, demonstrating how such attacks are far from new in this country's history; subsequently, it will establish how such attacks have shaped policy in the past and will likely shape policy in the future unless exposed. Finally, this project will propose a means to resolve the current immigration stalemate." Id. at 8.).

Stephen J. Schulhofer, More Essential Than Ever: The Fourth Amendment in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Oxford U. Press, 2012).

John Paul Stevens, Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir (New York: Little, Brown, 2011) ("[Chief Justice Warren Burger] closed with a quotation of words attributed to Sir Thomas More about the importance of the rule of law: 'The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what legal.... I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain-sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh there I'm a forester.... What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?... And when the last law was down, and the Devil was turned round on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--Man's laws, not God's--and if you cut them down...d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?... Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.'" Id. at 146-147.).

John Paul Stevens, Six Amendment: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution (New York: Little, Brown, 2014) (I have always interpreted the Second Amendment in the way Justice Stevens proposes as an amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed." Id. at 132.).