So, the end of the spring semester is fast approaching, and close on its heels is the summer. Whether you’re taking classes or completing an externship or just plan to spend your break as far away from the law school as possible, you may be looking for some ways to fill your free time. Here to help, as always, is your faculty to offer some summer reading suggestions.

Windsor Adams

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

McCreight, a former litigator, takes a lawyerly approach to this suspenseful novel, which follows a mother’s search to find out what really happened to her 15-year-old daughter.  The mother suspects her daughter’s death was not in fact the suicide it appeared to be.

Jennifer Chiovaro

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook and former VP at Google, takes on entrenched norms about women in the workforce – both external and internal sources. She calls on both genders to stand up for change, but particularly encourages women to “sit at the table” and pursue their goals, both professional and personal, with “gusto.”

Clark Cunningham

I highly recommend Jonathan Mahler’s The Challenge: Hamdan v Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power

From the back jacket:
“The Challenge is a rare achievement — a book as involving as it is important. The characters (real people, powerfully sketched) and the narrative (gripping as a movie) make Jonathan Mahler’s book impossible to put down …. The Challenge is the definitive insider’s account of how a law professor and a military lawyer won a historic Supreme Court case against military commissions established by the commander in chief.”

William Edmundson

I recommend three quick, compelling, inexpensive, and easy-to-find novels. Whether or not you are predisposed to sympathize with professors, you will be affected by Stoner, John Williams’s account of one academic’s life. “Gunner” is a term law students use to deride classmates who volunteer too readily in class. Whether or not you intend to “gun” your way through law school, you should enjoy James Salter’s The Hunters, which is about real gunners (fighter pilots). Sibling rivalry and the way we treat animals are two main themes of J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello. (Aging is another, but don’t let that turn you away.) “The Lives of Animals,” two early chapters written in lecture form, made me think again about how to live.

Anne Emanuel

For relaxation with a wonderful writer, I highly recommend Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey. It’s a classic (albeit an easy read classic) and it’s available free on Kindle.

Wendy Hensel

I would recommend The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger. It’s a funny, easy-to-read novel that explores a divorce case through the eyes of a young associate.

Neil Kinkopf

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons. This is a classic illustration of the role of a good lawyer. It is also an illustration of the limits that a good lawyer and a good person should never transgress.

Timothy Kuhner

I recommend Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. This promises to be one of the most important books ever on the relationship between capitalism and democracy. While it’s not exactly light reading, it does promise to stimulate your thoughts on the global systems within which law operates. And for anyone concerned by inequality and interested in the arguments for renewed democratic participation, this book will prove motivational.

Terrance Manion

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
As far as histories go, this one reads more like a conversation you would have at a bar with your buddy, Sarah, after she just got back from a trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately, like most bar conversations what it offers in spirit and humor, it lacks in depth of treatment. Still, having a chat with Sarah is an engaging and enjoyable experience.

Kris Niedringhaus

For a break from studying, I would recommend any of the Inspector Harry Hole crime novels by Jo Nesbø. They are a series but can be read out of order without much confusion. Be forewarned, Nesbø has a dark bent that I associate with Scandinavian crime writers. Perfect for summer would be The Snowman; you wouldn’t want to read that one when there is any chance of snow.

Deborah Schander

Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
Gaffigan is a stand-up comedian (best known for his Hot Pockets routine) who is also a father of five living in a tiny New York City apartment. His book is a series of short vingettes about everything from getting seven people to sleep at different times, commuting to parks across the city because they have no lawn of their own, and parenthood in general. His life and mine are vastly different, but I still found myself laughing out loud repeatedly. If you can, try to listen to the audio version, which Gaffigan reads himself.

Roy Sobelson

Try The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion or Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker. They are both weird and funny. The Mez is particularly innovative.

Anne Tucker

Donna Tart’s The Goldfinch. Because it hooks you in the first chapter and drives a very compelling story about the main character through a rich and tumultuous world of art, antiques, addiction, crime, and love. What more could you ask for in a single book? 2014 Pulitzer Prize Award.

For a fun book, Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple should also be at the top of your list for a story about the disappearance of a woman who thumbs her nose at convention and people’s expectations of her. It is a mystery and a satire and a comedy in one.

The Lonesome Dove Chronicles by Larry McMurtry. A 4-part series that is the ultimate Western American classic. It is strangely captivating, and you get sucked into this hard-scrabble world with frontier-weary cowboys and their struggles. Also the cowboy lingo is pretty fantastic, and you will come away with hilariously old-timey sounding phrases for very ordinary things, and you will never look at a carrot in quite the same way. Start with Lonesome Dove, a Pulitzer Prize winner, which is chronologically the third book in the plot, but the first published book of the series. Consider the others either a prequel or sequel to the first.

Austin Williams

American Legal History: A Very Short Introduction by G. Edward White is a great summer read for any lover of law and history. White provides short historical overviews of the development of key areas of law, such as property rights, criminal law, domestic relations, as well as legal education and the legal profession. At only 130 pages, it’s the perfect book to accompany you on a flight, by the pool, or on the beach.

Leslie Wolf

Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane. Private investigators are searching for a missing child. Not for the faint of heart, but a compelling story and well-writen. Several of Lehane’s novels have been made into movies, with good reason.

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd. This novel, set in Charleston, is told through the eyes of Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave, and the girl, Sarah Grimke, to whom she is given on Sarah’s 11th birthday, and it tells the story of their lives over the course of several decades. Although a novel, Sarah Grimke was a real person.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I’m sure this will be raised by a few, as it has been on everyone’s list this year. Although long, it is an absorbing book, and you’ll learn a little art history along the way.

Photo by Flickr user aafromaa.

We know – finals are about to get underway, and you don’t have time right now to read anything other than casebooks and outlines. That’s OK. Because in a few weeks, finals will be over, and the summer will begin. Which means that you’ll have time to read for fun, because that’s a thing that people do, we’ve heard. We consulted with the College of Law faculty, and received from them the following suggestions for some lighter reading. (If you want more suggestions, see our previous lists.) You know, for when exams are done (because exams will be done).

Pam Brannon

It’s almost impossible to overstate the influence The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, has had on me. I first read it when I was still in elementary school, and I can’t count how many times I have read it since then. I’m reading it again right now, actually. I’ve been trying to think of a way to describe it, and the best way I can think of is to say it’s impossibly funny. And impossibly influential. If you have any geek leanings at all and haven’t read Hitchhiker’s Guide, a lot of references will be explained once you read it. The importance of towels and the number 42. The Radiohead song “Paranoid Android.” Also, it has a character named Slartibartfast. That’s amazing.

Mark Budnitz

The Burgess Boys, Elizabeth Strout. This is a story about two brothers living in New York, one a corporate lawyer, the other a legal aid attorney doing criminal appellate work. They both go home to Maine to help their nephew who has been accused of committing a hate crime.

Russell Covey

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn. Flynn’s latest book, Gone Girl, is definitely her best yet. The book tells the story of Nick, whose beautiful wife Amy disappears amid signs of foul play. With a bow to the famous Japanese film Rashomon, the book tells the story of Amy’s disappearance from both Nick and Amy’s viewpoints, giving rise to substantial questions regarding the reliability of the narrators. I would have ended the book differently, but that’s just me. It kept me on edge all the way through. Great beach reading.

William Edmundson

A Perfect Spy is one of John le Carré’s best. Another book, Single and Single, involves lawyers, and resembles A Perfect Spy in its plot line, though it is not quite as well turned. The resemblance is no coincidence, because David Cornwell (le Carré when he’s at home) had a father on which the father character (or father-figure) in both novels was modeled. What makes Single and Single singular is not only that its protagonist is a lawyer, but is a lawyer with both a senior partner and clients from Hell.

Anne Emanuel

The Gift of Rain, by Tan Twan Eng. Technically a historical novel set in Malaysia during WWII, it is extraordinarily gracefully written and, as the author says, “very strong on human themes… Relationships, aging, love…”

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant. Gripping. A beautifully written compelling tale. Not a book I would have sought out, but once it was put in my hands, not a book I could put down.

Lynn Hogue

I just finished reading Richard Ben Cramer’s book What It Takes: The Way to the White House about the 1988 presidential race. It was published in 1993, so many folks may already have read it. The author, Cramer, died recently, and I picked up on it from his NYT obituary. I found it fascinating. Several folks who ran then, e.g., Joe Biden, are still around. Anyway, I would highly recommend it. Cramer has a breezy style and a great eye for detail. The book is apparently popular with political junkies, but you don’t have to be one to enjoy the book.

Deborah Schander

Whenever I get stressed about something, or just want to relax with a book I know I’m going to enjoy, I pull out A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle for another read. Published in 1990, A Year in Provence became a literary sensation and can in large part be credited (blamed?) for the “author moves to another country and writes pithy comments about the experience” genre. But don’t worry about the hype. It deserves all its praise. Mayle is a wry, witty author who can find humor and pathos in the most random of events. Immerse yourself in a world of French plumbers who never seem to be on hand to do the work, neighbors who are trying to sell their ramshackle abodes for a fortune, and the descriptions of Provençal food. Oh, the food. Delicious.

Nirej Sekhon

Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter. A gifted crime-fiction writer branches out with tremendous effect!

Roy Sobelson

The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson.

Ellen Taylor

My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor’s new memoir is a great read, and very inspirational.

Anne Tucker

The Round House, Louise Erdrich. From the NY Times Review: “A Native American woman is raped somewhere in the vicinity of a sacred round house, and seeking justice becomes almost as devastating as the crime. The round house itself stands on reservation land, where tribal courts are in charge, but the suspect is white, and tribal courts can’t prosecute non-Native people. In a morass of laws, the judge handling the case is uncertain whether the accused man can be charged at all, the 13-year-old boy whose mother was raped pursues his own quest for justice. In the process, this young boy will experience a heady jolt of adolescent freedom and a brutal introduction to both the sorrows of grown-up life and the weight of his people’s past.”

The Orchardist, Amanda Coplin. From the NY Times Review:  “‘His face was as pitted as the moon,’ Coplin writes of her late-19^th-century protagonist, a well-meaning orchardist named Talmadge whose familial yearnings are eclipsed by early misfortune: the mysterious disappearance of his teenage sister. At the cusp of middle age, Talmadge forms surrogate kinships with Della, a young girl also haunted by the loss of a sister, and Caroline, the herbalist who attended his mother before her death.” This book struck me as about the dividing line between solitude and loneliness. It was a gripping story that I raced to finish, and afterwards found myself thinking about the characters and missing them.

The Boy Kings of Texas, Domingo Martinez. This is a nonfiction memoir that reads like it must be fiction because how could anyone’s childhood/adolescence/early adulthood be so fraught with disaster and still have the main character survive to write about it later? This book is funny in its tragedy as the author talks about living between two worlds in the border town of Brownsville, Texas and the emotional upheaval of his family-life. In my circle this book has been read by as many male as female readers and all have been captivated by the humor, the rage, and the story of what feels like growing up in another world.

by Flickr user chaparral

Exams have begun, and maybe you can even see the end of them. Just in time for summer, here are some reading suggestions from your professors.

Russell Covey

I recently discovered a new favorite author — David Liss. Liss writes historical fiction. Many of his plotlines revolve around stock market manipulation and financial treachery. I highly recommend the Coffee Trader (about the attempt of a Jewish merchant in 15th century Amsterdam to corner the new European market in coffee), The Whiskey Rebels (an engrossing story set in post-revolutionary Philadelphia, New York, and Pittsburgh, involving all of the monumental figures of the day engaged in an epic battle over the financial fate of Hamilton’s Bank of the U.S. and of the new republic, exposing their very human motivations – greed, lust, honor, etc. – that brings them to life as real people), and, on a different note, The Ethical Assassin (trust me, very different, but equally engaging). And a bonus reason to read Liss – he’s a GSU graduate.

William Edmundson

I’ve enjoyed William Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru. Prescott was a 19th century Boston lawyer who happened also to be blind. The conquest is a story of treachery and brutality that disgusted even some of those who took a leading part in it. Prescott is never indignant but never misses an opportunity to point out how our interests shape our perceptions of our deeds. As Prescott was aware, most of the sources he had to rely on were suspect, and there is a wealth of archival material that has come to light since he wrote. So, there are more accurate histories but I would be surprised if there are many better stories.

Anne Emanuel

Population 485 by Michael Perry. A sleeper I would have overlooked but for the keen eye and good advice of the owner of a small independent bookstore. I can’t do better than the description on Amazon: “Welcome to New Auburn, Wisconsin, where the local vigilante is a farmer’s wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station in town), and the back roads are haunted by the ghosts of children and farmers. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, Population: 485 is a comic and sometimes heartbreaking true tale leavened with quieter meditations on an overlooked America.”

Jessica Gabel

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I usually don’t like non-fiction, but the action is riveting for a turn of a century book that meshes the architecture of the Chicago World’s Fair with the hunting grounds of a serial killer.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan – the ins and outs of the music industry told by way of a trek through time.

Bernadette Hartfield

I recommend The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.  It is a fascinating historical account of African American families who moved, or in some cases escaped, from the south to northern locales in the great migration.  It is very powerful and engaging, and it won many awards.  There are aspects of criminal, juvenile, family and race law throughout.  It’s available in paperback now, although it was only available in hardback when President Obama took it on his vacation last summer.

Wendy Hensel

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.  It’s the story of a widower and his daughter as told by the family dog.  It is a sweet and insightful book that is a great, quick read.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  It’s a complex story of a family of surgeons in Africa.  It is beautifully written and richly evocative.  It will stay with you long after the last page.

Nancy Johnson

The Litigators by John Grisham. If you want a fast page-turner, this book is for you. John Grisham books are usually not funny, but this time he wrote a funny story with interesting and sympathetic characters, Finley, Figg, and Zinc. The fate of the cholesterol drug lawsuit was inevitable, but there were some interesting twists along the way. There is lots of legal action, including the mistreatment of illegal immigrants, product liability law, and the hypocrisy of the drug companies. It is a very entertaining book.

Julian Juergensmeyer

Although it is law related – I still recommend The Lawyer Myth: A Defense of the American Legal Profession by Rennard Strickland and Frank T. Read. I just think it gives a perspective that we tend to miss when we are involved with the “law” – in whatever capacity – on a daily basis.

Basil Mattingly

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. A cure for ignorance, blood loss, and bedwetting. http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-09-23-ayn-rand_x.htm

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. A glimpse of our country before the bankers and lawyers got ahold of it. Great compilation of all of life’s essential priorities. http://rogerwallace.com/lonesomedove.html

Deborah Schander

I’ve just finished up The Agency trilogy by Y.S. Lee. It’s a young adult series about a teenage thief in Victorian England who is saved from the gallows and offered the chance to be trained in an all-female spy school. Just as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple was the perfect sleuth because no one ever paid attention to the quiet old lady, under the same theory Mary Quinn is trained to work undercover in overlooked roles (lady’s companion, builder, maid). The stories go quickly, have plenty of action and just the right amount of romance. The books also delve into the uneasy juxtaposition of the native English population with the Chinese immigrants in east London during this time. The series includes A Spy in the House, The Body at the Tower and The Traitor in the Tunnel.

Roy Sobelson

Defending Jacob by William Landay. It’s the story of a family torn apart by their son’s arrest for murder of a school friend. This one is likely to appeal to lawyers and non-lawyers alike, as it has a gut-wrenching human element to it, as well as the necessary legal wrangling and drama we’d normally associate with a book by Scott Turow or John Grisham.

Leslie Wolf

For pure escapism, I highly recommend the Spellman series by Lisa Lutz.  The tales of this dysfunctional family of private investigators who live and work in San Francisco are told through the eyes of the immature, but outrageously funny, middle-daughter, Isabel Spellman.  Start with the first, the Spellman Files.  I found them like potato chips — you can’t read just one.  If you read them on your e-reader, so click on the footnotes.  While some are just informative, so add to the hilarity.

On a more serious note, Still Alice, by Lisa Genova, is a compelling description of a highly successful academic experience with early on-set Alzheimer’s. While fictional, the story rings true — indeed the author’s work has been embraced by the Alzheimer’s Association.

Law school offers you many opportunities: rigorous development of your analytical skills, demanding and rewarding internships, free pizza. But what happens on those rare days when vendors and student groups aren’t plying you with free food? You try out local places recommended by our faculty and staff, of course.

We’ve put together a map for you, highlighting some of our favorite local eateries. Some are casual and quick, others are a bit further away but worth the effort. Clicking on a location will also pop up comments and menu suggestions. Bon appétit!