Book Review: The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

I have a new perspective on both the importance of the Supreme Court and the Presidency after reading this book. I now get why the abortion topic is so important and controversial. I now get why Supreme Court nominees are put through such hell before nominations. And with the upcoming Presidential election, I get more than ever why it's so important to understand where the candidates stand on topics such as abortion, separation of church and state, Miranda, etc.

I really enjoyed this book because it focuses on the most recent 15 years of the court. I remember all of the big cases that are studied in the book, which made it a very entertaining read at times. The book does a good job of studying the backgrounds of all of the recent justices and their voting ideologies.


Thanks to Toobin, I will never look at another Supreme Court case or nomination process in the same way again.

Book Review: The Kite Runner

I rarely read fictional books, but with the start of the new year, I thought I would try to expand my library beyond non-fiction. I landed upon the book "A Thousand Splendid Suns" as one of the top 2007 books on Amazon.com. It was the sequel to the book "The Kite Runner", which also got rave reviews, so I decided to buy it first. It was a good decision. This is by far one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time. I couldn't put it down and breezed through the 400 pages in just two weeks. An amazing feat for me because I only have time to read about an hour or so each day.

The book reads like a memoir. At times I would completely forget the book was fictional. He gives a great portrayal of what Afghanistan was like before and after the last 30 years of turmoil. Learning about the culture of the Afghani people was a great side-effect of reading the fascinating and wonderful novel.

I can't wait to read the sequel, it will definitely be part of my next Amazon.com book order.