The Nine - Jeffrey Toobin

Given my frustration with the current make-up of the Supreme Court, I put off reading Toobin's book until curiosity got the better of me. About a year ago, I read Becoming Justice Blackmun, a wonderful biography of Justice Blackmun's journey to the Supreme Court and his political and moral transformation once there. I felt that the book about Blackmun gave me a good background on the Court pre-Rehnquist, and that Toobin's book was a worthy continuation of the evolving Court. The Nine is an easy read, filled with interesting anecdotes and secrets of the Court. My favorite parts involve the interactions among and between justices, and learning more about how the Court works in terms of assigning opinions and garnering votes for one's view. Toobin has a liberal bias, and in this respect, the book is far from a neutral account of the Court and the Court's place in American society. The book does, however, cover a wide variety of issues, and provide an in-depth history of how these Nine came to be on the Court. I left with a new-found affinity for David Souter, and a real hope that the next eight years will provide the opportunity to bring the Court back to where I think it ought to be.