(c)Flickr user Josue Goge, licensed under Creative Commons
The semester is winding down, and you might actually be looking ahead to summer by now. Summer offers you a great opportunity to catch up on some non-school reading. Here’s a novel idea (some pun intended): This summer, you can read, or at least start, the American Bar Association’s list of the 25 Greatest Law Novels Ever. I’ll assume you’ve already read To Kill a Mockingbird, so you really only need to get through the other 24. If you’re a reader, this gives you a great opportunity to step away from the casebook for a bit.
There are some great books on the ABA’s list, including many classics. If you’re looking for a literary page-turner, I highly recommend The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Maybe this summer is the summer that you finally read Crime and Punishment or Les Miserables. Or maybe you’ll just take The Firm or A Time to Kill to the beach. Think how smart you’ll feel when you’re interviewed for a job next fall and you tell them you spent the summer reading Bleak House and Native Son!
Where will you find these books? The Chicago-Kent College of Law Library, of course! Our Law and Popular Culture (LPOP) collection includes copies of all 25 novels, plus a lot of other great books and the ABA’s 25 Greatest Legal Movies, which would probably be a less ambitious summer project.
No matter what you’re looking forward to this summer, the library will be open to help you make the most of it, whether it’s the top 25 law novels, a place to study for the bar exam, or research help at your summer job.
Good luck with the end of the semester!
