Rabbit sculpture at Hall Wines. St. Helena, California

Photo credit. Filoli Holiday Lights.

It’s been 10 years since we debuted the first Holiday Book List! We’ve come a long way but one thing hasn’t changed - the depth and breadth of the recommendations. We are delighted to present Berkeley Law Library’s December 2022 Holiday Book List.

The New York Times recently featured How A Good Book Became the Richest of Holiday Gifts. As the saying goes, no matter what you’re celebrating, remember a book is a gift you can always reopen.

As always we are grateful to the Law School Community for these wonderful reviews and recommendations.

Have a great break everyone and all the best for 2023!

Berkeley Law Library

Click on book cover to read review.

Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal
Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt
The Big Bad Fox / Le Grand Méchant Renard by Benjamin Renner
Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak
Bullet Train  and Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka; English translation by Sam Malissa
Celestial Pantomime: Poetic Structures of Transcendence by Justus George Lawler
Code Name Helene: A Novel by Ariel Lawhon
Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals by Melissa Clark
A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age by Alec Wilkinson
Elia Kazan: A Life by Elia Kazan
Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II  by Daniel James Brown
The Fervor by Alma Katsu
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel by Elif Shafak
Jena 1800: Republic of Free Spirits by Peter Neumann
Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie N. Holmberg
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Lincoln by David Herbert Donald
Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel
Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris
My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist's Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole by Will Jawondo
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Perfect Horse: The Daring Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis by Elizabeth Letts
Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America by Hugh Eakin
The Promise by Damon Galgut
River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, & Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard
Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth  by Elizabeth Williamson
Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell (YA)
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Shadows, Fire and Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti by Patricia Albers
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Six California Kitchens: A Collection of Recipes, Stories, and Cooking Lessons from a Pioneer of California Cuisine by Sally Schmitt with Bruce Smith
The Southpaw; Bang the Drum Slowly; It Seemed Like Forever by Mark Harris
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff
We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds
Wound From the Mouth of a Wound: Poems by torrin a. greathouse

Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal

Ramona C. Collins, Circulation

I was riveted by this book from the very beginning, i.e. the dedication which goes like this, “To my children, Claudius and Maximilian, in hopes that they don’t have to fight some of these white supremacists in robes.” I still don’t understand how/why the author’s children were given such classical names, but I have a way better understanding of the Constitution. Elie Mystal’s writing style is engaging and funny. For example, after explaining that the Constitution was so bad from the beginning that it needed to be updated immediately, he brings it into current context by saying, “Video gamers would call the Bill of Rights a ‘day one patch,’ and they’re a good indication that the developers didn’t have enough time to work out all the kinks.” He explains that his goal is “to expose what the Constitution looks like from the vantage of a person it was designed to ignore.”

In each chapter, Mystal takes one of the first ten amendments to the Constitution and explains how it applies to modern situations. For example, Mystal reminds us that cancel culture does not implicate the First Amendment in any way since there are no government actors involved. Nevertheless, if a billionaire is offended by a news story, they can fund a bunch of frivolous lawsuits against the news outlet. And one of those lawsuits might find its way to a jury trial. And if the trial is in Florida, “trying to explain how laws work to a jury comprised of ‘Florida Man’” is a losing proposition. Mystal’s own protected speech as a journalist has been chilled by the current climate, and he explains why much better than I could here. Mystal also breaks down and simplifies the issues in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case by comparing the First Amendment to Captain America. You will be educated and entertained at the same time.

After reading this book, I better understand what a suspect class is and how strict scrutiny is triggered. I also see that the various levels of scrutiny are just so much BS when judges and justices tailor their arguments to arrive at a desired outcome. The fact that the Korematsu case survived strict scrutiny is a prime example, and Mystal lays out his arguments very clearly.

Can you imagine how substantive due process is like “an avenging Chupacabra”? Mystal will help you see it clearly using the example of a hipster deli in Brooklyn. After reading this book, the previous sentences will no longer seem like a bunch of gibberish.

And finally, this is the last of my favorite quotes: “The limiting principle on [Constitutional rights] is not the eighteenth-century perception of rights or privileges. It’s not informed by Clarence Thomas conducting a séance to talk to his ancestral captors, or Neil Gorsuch unearthing the original Constitutional Convention lunch menu to divine whether ‘roasting’ was a delicious punishment allowed by the founders.” If you’re like me you will laugh out loud many times as you read this delightful and educational book. Have fun!

Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt

Steven Davidoff Solomon, Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of Law

I recommend Deborah E. Lipstadt’s Antisemitism Here and Now - a searching inquiry into the perpetuation of antisemitism on both the left and right. Lipstadt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March 2022 as the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, with the rank of Ambassador.

The Big Bad Fox / Le Grand Méchant Renard by Benjamin Renner

Joe Cera, Repository and Information Services

English version, French version, YouTube Trailer for video collection

Imagine a time when you really wanted something but just didn't have the skills or resources to get it. Along comes someone with a seemingly good idea for you to get what you want and just like all idea people, the expectation is that you will do all the work and share the benefits. In the end, you can't follow through on the idea because it turns out you love those chickens and that's why you are a lovable baddie.

I don't often read graphic novels but they are a great resource when you want to brush up on your foreign language dialogue skills. I was particularly drawn to this book because the artwork is incredible. It turns out that the story doesn't disappoint either. The fox is hungry and wants to eat chickens but he is also particularly bad at being a predator when it comes to chickens. No one is threatened when he comes into the chicken area and they mostly just kindly ask him to leave. Along comes the wolf with a great idea: if the fox can get some eggs and raise chickens, then they can both eat chickens after hatching more eggs. Based on the cover alone, it won't surprise anyone that the fox loves the chickens that hatch and decides that he can't give them to the wolf for eating. Like any good graphic novel, the drawings are good enough to tell the entire story without any words and the words only add to the humor.

Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak

Noga Firstenberg, Lecturer

From Amazon: “The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance. At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge - for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle. The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome? Written in powerfully inventive language and bursting with heart, Bridge of Clay is signature Zusak”.

Bullet Train and Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka; English translation by Sam Malissa

Kathryn Hashimoto, Copyright Research Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

If you’ve seen the whitewashed movie adaptation starring Brad Pitt, you should read the Japanese bestseller on which it’s based. While not nearly as amped up and over the top as the blockbuster film, Bullet Train the book is still filled with cartoonish characters and outlandish plot developments, with several casualties along the way. It’s fun! Each chapter takes you into a different compartment of the speeding train, following five different assassins on a wild goose chase full of twists and double crosses. The final resolution is unexpected and satisfying (and very different from the movie). This is a great read for the holidays: all you have to do is turn off your brain and enjoy the ride. And if you have time, check out the “prequel” of sorts, Three Assassins, which provides backstory for a few of the minor characters from Bullet Train.

Celestial Pantomime: Poetic Structures of Transcendence by Justus George Lawler

Dean Rowan, Director, Reference & Research Services

What a surprisingly satisfying, if sprawling and eccentric work is Celestial Pantomime! It is literary theory crafted during a time when “theory” in the humanities was disengaging from the substance about which it was theorizing, a trajectory that seems to have negatively impressed Lawler, for the book is rich in poetic examples that illustrate his assertions about how poetry works. His theory posits a “‘central poem’ in which all lesser poems find their ultimate meaning,” just as humans strive to transcend their contingent circumstances. They do so by exhibiting patterns that have almost no semantic value. For example, a line might exhibit unusual syllabic patterns, or chiasmus, or enjambment, none of which carries meaning per se. But Lawler identifies correlations between the incidence of these patterns and the meanings they impart by imposing “structures” on the poems in which they occur. Thus, an enjambed line breaks the barrier of a pattern of end-stopped lines, effecting an experience of escape, transcendence beyond the contingent toward the absolute. Lawler’s fund of knowledge of poetry and of other disciplines is vast. I identified at least one word among the many I had to look up that does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary (sillion). He’s also something of a name-dropper. His index consists mostly of names of poets, philosophers, literary scholars, and cultural critics, but very few terms referring to poetic elements. Still, and even accounting for the possibility that Lawler’s theory is dead wrong, I learned more about how to read and explore poetry than I have in some time.

Code Name Hélène: A Novel by Ariel Lawhon

Noga Firstenberg, Lecturer

From Amazon: “Based on the thrilling real-life story of socialite spy Nancy Wake, comes the newest feat of historical fiction from the New York Times best-selling author of I Was Anastasia, featuring the astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII. Told in interweaving timelines organized around the four code names Nancy used during the war, Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding and moving story of enduring love, remarkable sacrifice, and unfaltering resolve that chronicles the true exploits of a woman who deserves to be a household name.”

Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals by Melissa Clark

Edna Lewis, Reference Librarian

I am a big fan of the NYTimes Cooking section and in particular contributor Melissa Clark. For me, her recipes are quick, easy and hit the spot. For all these reasons, I was particularly excited when my friend Lindsey gave me Clark’s Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals for my birthday. It does not disappoint. All recipes can indeed be made in one pan (skillet, casserole, dutch oven, sheet pan, etc.). My favorites so far include the Garlicky Chicken with Sugar Snap Peas and Lemon, Tarragon Chicken with Caramelized Onions and Butternut Squash, Creamy Corn Polenta Bake with Bleu Cheese, and Creamy Goat Cheese Pasta with Burst Tomatoes and Olives. You can’t beat the quick cleanup and best of all there’s usually enough left over for lunch the next day.

A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age by Alec Wilkinson

Kathryn Hashimoto, Copyright Research Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

Because I remember hitting a wall in college called Calculus 1B that I could not overcome, I was drawn to this book and its premise, in which New Yorker writer Wilkinson attempts to teach himself mathematics—a project he tackles with a fervor nearing obsession. While it covers some advanced mathematical concepts and history and related topics, the book also seems to be about Wilkinson’s personal process of thinking and learning; at times I became frustrated with his obstinacy and subsequent dismay at not being able to master something, indulging his ego and making it the central subject. Still, it’s a pleasure to read Wilkinson’s prose and to learn a little about the beautiful language of mathematics.

Elia Kazan: A Life by Elia Kazan

Paul Clark, Lecturer; Member, Board of Directors, Berkeley Law Alumni Association

Kazan, likely the most consequential theater and film director of the mid-20th Century, published his memoir in 1988. I purchased a copy a number of years ago after repeatedly reading that it is the best “show business” memoir ever written. But its 825 pages kept staring down at me. I finally cracked it this year and can report that it is essential reading if you want to understand the development of serious American theater and film in the immediate post-war years. Kazan, who started as an actor, primarily in plays written by his friend Clifford Odets, moved into directing, staging the original Broadway productions of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Their Teeth, Arthur “Art” Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Tennessee “Tenn” Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, as well as many other important plays. In film, he directed Gentleman’s Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront (developed with his friend Budd Schulberg), East of Eden and Splendor in the Grass. He helped make stars of Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, James Dean and Warren Beatty, among many others. Kazan talks about his experience, positive and negative, with all of the actors and with the leading playwrights and writers of the time. As a founder of the Actors Studio, Kazan also has views on The Method, largely dismissing it at the end. His mentor and rival was Lee Strasberg, to whom he gives great credit but ultimately can’t forgive Strasberg for exploiting Marilyn Monroe.

If you know anything about Kazan it is that he named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee aka HUAC. He acknowledged to HUAC that he had been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930’s, though he quit the party fairly quickly. Kazan does not shy away from discussing his decision and its consequences, including being snubbed by many former friends, among them Arthur Miller. While he owns his decision, he admits that he understands the point of view of those who disagree with it.

The reason that Kazan needed 825 pages was to reflect at length about his immigrant parents and two of his three marriages. Do we really need to know in epic detail about his guilt over his serial infidelities? Or that he slept with every young actress, including Marilyn Monroe, that came his way? Did his friend Arthur Miller really need to know that Kazan had a relationship with Monroe before Miller married her? I found myself skipping these pages and moving on to the discussion of the next movie or play.

That being said, this is an important book and its length should not deter those interested in Kazan’s life and work.

Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri (YA)

Annette Counts, Librarian, Bishop O’Dowd High School; Spouse of Berkeley Law Grad Tom Counts

According to my library catalog system, Everything Sad is Untrue has an interest level of 5-8 grade. Once again, my library catalog system is wrong. I have the interest level of a sixty year old, and I loved every minute of this heart breaking, funny and insightful book. Everything Sad is Untrue is about the power of stories. Khosrou/ Daniel is a young refugee from Iran who winds up in Oklahoma. His kind and wise teacher (I am a sucker for a kind and wise teacher) encourages him to tell stories to the class. Daniel uses stories to feel the love, comfort and connection to his former life in Iran. He uses stories to give himself the strength to face the bullying, loneliness and poverty he experiences in his new school and country. Mostly he uses stories to build connections with his classmates who listen to his stories of Iran with skepticism, wonder and endless questions. Their questions allow Daniel to continue his story and in doing so to show his classmates a world they don’t know and a boy they do. A colleague and I read Everything Sad is Untrue together and spent the entire semester discussing our favorite lines and scenes from the book. Everything Sad is Untrue is timely, beautiful, affecting - and should be required reading for every age.

Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown

Amanda Tyler, Shannon C. Turner Professor of Law

Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown is an exceptional read about the incredible service of Japanese Americans in the United States military during World War II.

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

Kathryn Hashimoto, Copyright Research Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

The Fervor is a hybrid novel mixing historical fiction with chilling elements of the horror genre and Japanese folklore. Weaving together three different narratives, The Fervor takes place in the early 1940s, as the U.S. enters World War II and anti-Japanese sentiment is inflamed. A woman and her young daughter are forcibly removed from their home in Seattle to incarceration in Minidoka, Idaho, where a deadly disease and violence start spreading at the camp. Elsewhere, a minister witnesses a horrific, inexplicable incident and in his grief gets caught up in nefarious conspiracies. Meanwhile, a determined reporter fights sexism and misinformation to uncover truths that the government is trying to hide. At times all the different characters and stories get a little confusing, but it all comes together at the end. It’s an engrossing supernatural tale based on historic fact in which the real threat and horror is racism and violence in America, with parallels to recent events.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Edna Lewis, Reference Librarian

Geraldine Brooks' latest book, Horse, is hands down my favorite fiction read this year. In Horse Brooks uses the true story of 19th century racehorse Lexington to tell the fictional stories of two black men - Lexington’s enslaved groom Jarrett and a contemporary Georgetown Phd art history student Theo. Their stories intersect when Theo discovers in a neighbor’s discards a famous portrait of Lexington with Jarrett by 19th century painter Thomas J. Scott. The story “gallops” backward and forward in time with a sweeping narrative. Brooks immerses us in Jarrett’s world of 1850s horse racing in America as well his precarious life in the antebellum south. Jarrett’s desire for freedom is at odds with his devotion to Lexington. Through Theo and his Australian girlfriend Jess (who is tasked with unearthing Lexington’s skeleton from the Smithsonian attic) we learn once again how strongly racism persists into the present day.

The meticulous historical research that went into this book is mind boggling and creates a “you are there” feel to the story which grabs you and doesn’t let go. After finishing I spent hours googling the various actual people in the book as well as Lexington. Lexington went on to sire most of the premier bloodstock in American racing, Scott’s painting of Lexington still exists, and Lexington’s skeleton was actually discovered in the Smithsonian’s attic and today is the centerpiece of the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, Kentucky. The rest of the actual characters (Cassius Clay, Thomas J. Scott, Richard Ten Broeck, etc.), I’ll let you have the satisfaction of ferreting out on your own.

Australian Geraldine Brooks and her late husband Tony Horowitz (the Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author of among other books Confederates in the Attic), adopted a black son Bizu from Ethiopia. Brooks exploration of the lasting harms of slavery and anger at the ongoing racism in contemporary America imbue this novel. Those of you familiar with Brooks' other books, my two favorites being March and People of the Book, already know just how good she is at blending historical fact with captivating fiction.

I read this book in one day. And I envy all of you who get to read it for the first time now.

The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel by Elif Shafak

Holly Johnson, Director, Administration and Donor Engagement Giving and Donor Support

I heard about this book in the Hyannis airport this summer. I was "people watching" in the airport and two apparently-unrelated women started chatting about this book because one was reading it. I figured any book that inspired strangers to talk was worth checking out! I am so happy that I did.

The book is by the Turkish-British writer Elif Shafek. Part of it is told from the point of view of a fig tree. Through the young love story of a Turkish Cypriot and a Greek Cypriot, we learn about the island of Cyprus and the violent conflict between Turks and Greeks on the island. We see the effects of the diaspora on families. We see how identity is complex and how it can be forged by what happened to our families or cultures before we were born. We see how nature is not a backdrop, but a protagonist.

This is one of those books that keeps coming back to me.

Jena 1800: Republic of Free Spirits by Peter Neumann (translated by Shelley Frisch; first American edition published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022)

Murat Arcak, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (and spouse of Stephanie Deaner, Senior Development Director)

In May 1789, weeks before the storming of Bastille, Friedrich Schiller presented his inaugural lecture at the University of Jena. The subsequent decade and a half saw the intermingling of free thinkers in Jena – among them Schelling, Schlegel brothers, their wives, and poet Novalis – with Goethe, then in the court of Duke of Saxe-Weimar, a strong influence in the background, enabling their appointments from nearby Weimar. This brief and engaging book follows this group, tells the story of their philosophizing and personal affairs, including Caroline Schlegel’s infatuation with Schelling, 12 years younger than she, whom she eventually marries after the Duke grants a divorce from Wilhelm Schlegel. The book closes with the French invasion of Jena in 1806, by which time no members of the group remained in this tiny university town and the heady days of “Jena Romanticism” were over.

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie N. Holmberg

Kate Peck, Cataloging

After a year like 2022, I've sought some breaks from reality this holiday season. One of the most engaging escapes that I've come across this year is Charlie Holmberg's Keeper of Enchanted Rooms. For every witch or wizard who fights evil beings and tames mystical beasts there have to be hundreds or thousands who do the every day work that makes the world run smoothly. The female protagonist, Hulda, is one of those people who smooths out bumps in the road, dealing with magical houses that just won't behave. Whether trapping their owners inside or dripping blood in the hallways, these houses have a lot more personality than today's Smart Homes. Great gift for the younger adults in your family who grew up with Harry Potter and still want a little magic in their lives.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kathryn Hashimoto, Copyright Research Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

In his eighth novel and first since winning the Nobel Prize, author Kazuo Ishiguro takes readers to a vaguely futuristic setting somewhere in the American northeast to present a moving parable about love, humanity, and science. Klara is a solar-powered Artificial Friend (AF), a humanlike robot acquired to be the companion to a bright teenager who appears to be suffering from some ailment. With a limited knowledge base, Klara is left to form her own naive ideas and suppositions to make sense of everything that is happening around her, leading to sometimes amusing, sometimes devastating conclusions. Written in his characteristically spare and reserved prose, Ishiguro creates an unforgettable protagonist in Klara, whose utterly sincere and caring “personality” raises questions about what it means to be human and whether we’re losing it. Highly recommended.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

Mel Eisenberg, Jesse H. Choper Professor of Law (Emeritus)

This is a magnificent Life, beginning with Lincoln’s childhood. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called it a grand work – the Lincoln biography for this generation. The review in the Chicago Tribune said, eagerly awaited, Lincoln fulfills expectations. Donald writes with elegance and lucidity.

Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel
John Zorn's Theater of Musical Optics by Ela Troyano

Michael Lindsey, Director of Library Web Development

I've realized that getting hoodwinked by a good magic trick is a special joy for me.

As I read Locus Solus (1914), I was constantly calling out "this book is insane!" to anyone within earshot. A professor leads us on a walking tour of his estate and indulges our attention with a series of outrageously improbable living scenes of his own invention. We learn the literally fantastic origins of the persons who are involved in each scene. The tempo of the walk and of the storytelling left me with a nagging feeling that there had been some sleight of hand involved, some trickery, some misplaced trust. Like suddenly realizing that my wallet was missing.

It was a particular joy perhaps because it also reminded me of John Zorn's Theater of Musical Optics from the mid-seventies, where a handful of audience members would sit around a small table in the dark while the performer would add and remove small objects from a square under a small light. The objects and their silent appearance, removal, and manipulation are understood to be the components of a musical performance, a sort of Glass Bead Game. I had heard about this in the 90s but only just recently read about it properly. Ela Troyano documented it contemporaneously in The Drama Review, and it's utterly fascinating.

Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris

Paul Clark, Lecturer; Member, Board of Directors, Berkeley Law Alumni Association

This 2021 biography of Nichols is a page turner. Harris is an accomplished writer whose life partner is Tony Kushner, the author of Angels in America. Harris is also the author of Pictures at a Revolution, an examination of the 5 movies nominated for Best Picture in 1968. Nichols’ The Graduate was one of those films.

The comparisons between Elia Kazan’s life (his memoir Eliza Kazan: A Life is reviewed elsewhere in this list) and Nichols’ life are striking. Both were immigrants who needed to learn English and find a place for themselves. Nichols fell in love with the theater after seeing Kazan’s productions of Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. Both pursued acting as a means of acceptance. Nichols joined an improvisational theater group at the University of Chicago that became Second City. After struggling to find his niche, he partnered with Elaine May to form a highly successful improv comedy act that had a long run on Broadway.

During the Broadway run of Nichols and May, Nichols met a number of artists that would impact his career. Neil Simon asked him to direct his first play, Barefoot in the Park. After the success of Barefoot he directed the original production of Simon’s The Odd Couple, which starred Art Carney and Walter Matthau.

Richard Burton, who was in Camelot at the theater next door to Nichols and May, persuaded Elizabeth Taylor and the producers to let Nichols direct Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And to film it in black and white. That success led to The Graduate. Nichols rejected Robert Redford for the lead as he was too “perfect” and instead went with a little known off-Broadway actor named Dustin Hoffman. The rest is history.

For the rest of his career Nichols, like Kazan, moved back and forth between film and theater. His films include Carnal Knowledge, Catch 22, Silkwood, Heartburn, Postcards from the Edge, Biloxi Blues, and Charlie Wilson’s War among others. He directed the award winning HBO production of Angels in America. His theater productions include The Real Thing, Hurlyburly and Death and the Maiden. Importantly, Nichols decided to stage Death of a Salesman with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman. As an homage to Kazan he recreated the sets from the original Kazan production. Nichols won a Tony award for Best Direction for his efforts.

Nichols had addiction issues and was married multiple times. He appears to have found both sobriety and happiness later in life with his marriage to Diane Sawyer, the CBS newscaster.

Unlike Kazan, Nichols seems to have been adored and respected by the arts community as evidenced by the attendees at his memorial service, referred to as “The Last Ratfuck”: Meryl Streep, Julia Robert, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Donen, Emma Thompson, Elaine May, Tom Stoppard, Christopher Walken, Paul Simon, among many others.

A good read.

My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist's Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole by Will Jawondo

Kelly Woolfolk, Clinical Supervising Attorney, New Business Community Law Clinic

My Seven Black Fathers is a great read authored by a fellow attorney and Maryland councilman, biracial son of an immigrant, mentee to Barack Obama and illustrious education advocate. Here are links which offer some insight into the work:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Seven-Black-Fathers-Activists/dp/0374604878
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58772763-my-seven-black-fathers

Sometimes we just need a good book to take us away from the labors of law school and its demands.

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Kathryn Hashimoto, Copyright Research Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

In this highly entertaining debut novel, Harris nails the East Coast publishing milieu and the social and professional dynamics within it. She captures well the stress and grind of office life in publishing while focusing her attention on women (who make up a large percentage of the workforce, though not so much at the top) and on Black women in particular (who are mostly woefully absent from the industry). Multiple storylines and timelines combine to create a world that seems almost fantastically plausible. (Be mindful of what hair care product you use....) There’s a great vitality to this book that keeps you turning the page. Part satire, part horror thriller, the story leads to a twisty conclusion that is surprising but feels inevitable.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Christina Sunley, author of Tricking of Freya, grants consultant and spouse of Oliver Kay, Acquisitions/Serials

A Dystopian Novel That Reveres Poets and Librarians

Imagine a future United States where Asians and Asian-Americans are demonized after a major economic crisis deemed to be China’s fault. Following a decade of widespread unemployment, civil unrest, violence, and destruction, an all encompassing federal law called PACT is passed:

PACT is more than a law. It’s a promise we make to each other: a promise that for people who weaken our country with un-American ideas, there will be consequences.

Most people accept PACT because PACT brought an end to the Crisis. Supposedly, PACT is not about race – except it is. PAOs – Persons of Asian Origin – are subject to random acts of violence, discrimination and constant suspicion. Anyone, in fact, can be the object of suspicion if they say, do or even think anything that might subvert PACT. And any parent engaging in acts of subversion can have their children taken away by the government, secretly adopted into new families – disappeared without a trace.

Twelve-year-old Bird has never known a time without PACT; he accepts the rules of PACT unquestioningly. But one day when Bird was nine his Asian-American mother, a poet, walked out the door and out of his life without a word. In public, Bird’s father disavows his wife. He tells Bird they must never speak of her. Bird knows that for some reason his mother is considered a traitor to PACT. But no one will tell him why.

After Bird’s mother is denounced as a subversive, Bird’s father, a White man who had been a professor at Harvard, is demoted to a job shelving books in the library. They lose their house and move to a tiny dorm room with bunk beds. Bird’s father is devoted and extremely protective of him, knowing that with his mix of Asian and Anglo features, and a mother branded as a traitor, Bird’s very existence is precarious.

Then one day Bird receives a mysterious drawing in the mail that he knows is from his mother – and so begins his quest to find her. Clues point to New York City, and in an act of daring for an unaccompanied child with Asian features, Bird runs away. (His walk from ChinaTown to the Upper East Side is gorgeously written and magically captures the city’s distinctive – and sometimes frightening – parade of neighborhoods.)

I won’t tell you any more of what happens to Bird, but I will tell you that this is such a lavishly written novel that I savored it bit by bit because I didn’t want it to end. And now I want to start it all over again. I’m not the only one; it’s a best seller with rave reviews and was just listed in the New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2022.”

But the most important thing you should know is that librarians play a crucial role in this novel, forming a kind of underground information railroad to track down the disappeared children and connect them to their parents. At great personal risk, they pass along bits of information; it’s too dangerous to write any of it down, so they store everything in memory: “An imperfect system, but the brain of a librarian was a capacious place.” They collate all the information “with the Rolodex of their minds.” If you’ve been looking for a book where librarians are revered, you’ll find it with Our Missing Hearts.

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Mel Eisenberg, Jesse H. Choper Professor of Law (Emeritus)

This is a strongly plotted novel that turns in part on the very bad treatment of Indians by the Anglo-English when England still controlled India, as well as on the relationships between characters within the Anglo-Indian and Indian communities. The great critic Lionel Trilling said, “Forster’s book is not about India alone; it is about all of human life.”

The Perfect Horse: The Daring Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis by Elizabeth Letts

Edna Lewis, Reference Librarian

This nonfiction work covers a niche but fascinating episode of World War II history - the rescue by U.S. forces of the Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna which had been stolen by the Germans in order to breed an equine master race. The Americans discover Hitler’s plot in the closing days of the war when they capture a German spy and in his papers find pictures of the stallions. At the same time the Russians are closing in from the east and the horses are in danger of being slaughtered for food. With only a short time left, U.S. Colonel Hank Reed (with the support of General George Patton) launches a covert rescue operation. This really is a heart-stopping page turner as U.S. forces steal across enemy lines to save the prized horses.

Whether you like horses or not, “Operation Cowboy” as it was called is quite the story with a strong cast of real life heroes. It reminded me of watching the movie Argo - you know they get out in the end, but you’re still on the edge of your seat the whole time.

Vienna’s Famed Lipizzaner Stallions

Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America by Hugh Eakin

Paul Clark, Lecturer; Member, Board of Directors, Berkeley Law Alumni Association

Picasso’s War by Hugh Eakin is subtitled “How Modern Art Came to America.” It is the fascinating story of how European artists that we today refer to as the creators of “modern” art were finally accepted by the collecting and museum community in the United States. In addition to Picasso, this includes Matisse, Gauguin, Cezanne, Brancusi, Rousseau and even Van Gogh. However, the focal point of the story is the 30 years it took for Picasso’s artistic genius to be acknowledged in the United States, despite being widely heralded in Europe, including, ironically, pre-Hitler Germany and pre-revolution Russia. Eakin introduces us to two important figures in the acceptance of modern art. John Quinn is a prominent attorney who builds a substantial personal collection of paintings and sculpture by European artists, including some of Picasso’s greatest early 20th Century paintings. Quinn hopes to leave his collection to a museum, but passes away in 1924 before his will can be redrawn. His collection is sold at auction and most of it returns to dealers and collectors in Europe. Enter Alfred Barr, the first Director of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Founded in 1929, MOMA had limited resources and no collection of its own. Barr begins a decade-long crusade to both acquire Picassos for MOMA and to hold a show of Picasso’s art. His quest is complicated by the rivalry between Picasso’s two main dealers in Paris and Picasso’s own ambivalence toward the United States—his paintings had not sold in the United States, so why should he care? Finally, in 1939 Barr was able to organize a retrospective of Picasso’s work that is now legendary. Along the way, MOMA acquired a number of paintings that had been sold at the Quinn auction for prices substantially above what would have been paid in 1924.

In his review of Picasso’s War in The New Yorker, Louis Menand noted that until the last part of the 20th Century, determinations of which artists are important were made by dealers, museums and critics. Today, it is the auction houses. $12 million for a shark in formaldehyde anyone?

The Promise by Damon Galgut

Kristie Chamorro, Instructional and Educational Technology Librarian

The Promise is the latest novel by South African writer Damon Galgut and winner of the 2021 Booker Prize. The story follows the Swarts, a white family living on a farm in South Africa, over four decades of tumultuous political and social change. It is structured around four family funerals, a contested piece of land, and the troubled lives of the Swart siblings.

Not a light read, but it is at the top of my recommendations list this year. The family saga and look at the upheaval and racism in South Africa through compelling, but often unlikeable, characters drew me in. Galgut’s fluid narration style of darting between points of view kept me engaged and on my toes while reading. If you want to enjoy this novel while wrapping holiday presents, the audio version is also terrific.

River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, & Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard

Pam Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law; Professor of School Information; Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

Fascinating story about the British explorers who endured many adventures and travails in an effort to discover the body of water (Lake Victoria) that serves as the source of the Nile.

Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth by Elizabeth Williamson

Michael Levy, Associate Director, Law Library; Lecturer in Residence

If you have been following New York Times coverage of the trials of Alex Jones in Texas and Connecticut you would have read the stellar reporting of Elizabeth Williamson. Her book on the aftermath of Sandy Hook was published earlier in 2022 before the massive award of damages to the Sandy Hook families. Williamson's book is not primarily about the events of that tragic day but the aftermath, or as Williamson describes it, "[the] battle by victims' families against deluded people and profiteers who denied the December 14, 2012 shooting." This is not an easy book to read. I found myself every few days putting it to one side, unable to comprehend the depths of pain that the families have had to suffer. Williamson interviews not just the families but the delusional conspiracy theorists and charlatans, with Jones as the cheerleader, who have made the families’ lives a living hell for the last ten years. While there are more entertaining books to read this holiday season, there are few that are more urgent.

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell (YA)

Annette Counts, Librarian, Bishop O’Dowd High School, Spouse; of Berkeley Law Grad Tom Counts

If you don’t know Rainbow Rowell, please introduce yourself asap. Her writing is gentle and poignant. She creates characters who are so real that even though I’ve never been a young adult in Nebraska, I could relate to all of them. Scattered Showers is a collection of short stories that share the theme of “finding your person.” Your person could be a best friend, a bridge troll or the annoying tank top wearing guy in your dorm. Finding your person requires putting in the time, and in true Rowell fashion, connections are in the oddest and smallest of things: jello-salad, waiting in line, playlists, holiday traditions. In other words, Rowell’s worlds are real, relatable and the character development is precise with details that make you think: “exactly - that’s exactly right.” In the way that fiction is the perfect vehicle for delivering the truth, her renderings of the COVID complexities of isolation, masking, and participating in family gatherings were more illuminating than any newspaper article. In these short stories, Rainbow Rowell fans will be delighted to encounter characters from her novels such Attachments, Fan Girl and Carry On. When readers ask for recommendations for books that are realistic but not overpowered by tragedy - I always recommend Rainbow Rowell. She brings out the quiet richness in the everyday.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Chris Tarr, Emeritus Librarian (former Head of Cataloging)

I loved Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel’s novel about a pandemic that came out before the pandemic. Somehow I never read The Glass Hotel, but I did in order to read The Sea of Tranquility, since they all share a few characters. I liked The Glass Hotel, a novel about characters resolving a difficult upbringing in a remote town in British Columbia. I liked The Sea of Tranquility even more. It takes place in several centuries, from 1912 to 2195, and deals with time travel, life on the moon, and the idea that we might be living in a simulation of a universe rather than a universe itself. But, as one character realizes, a life lived in a simulation is still a life. As with Station Eleven, the science fiction aspect of the plot is really the least of this novel about loss, loneliness and connection, and what it means to live a life.

Shadows, Fire and Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti by Patricia Albers

Delia Violante, Associate Director, Berkeley Center for Law and Business; Director, Women in Business Law Initiative

This is a marvelous book about photographer and revolutionary Tina Modotti.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

Edna Lewis, Reference Librarian

Kate Atkinson’s latest book, Shrines of Gaiety, is set in 1920s London and captures the frantic decadence of the immediate post World War I era. The action centers around Nellie Coker, the calculating doyenne of London’s nightclub scene (modeled on actual infamous nightclub manager Kate Meyrick). Inspector John Frobisher is determined to take Coker down even though any number of the policemen working for him are in cahoots with her. Various other shady characters want to seize her profitable empire for themselves. And a string of young girls who serve as paid dancers at Coker’s clubs mysteriously disappear only later to be pulled from the Thames. At the same time, the bright young things immortalized by Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies are at Coker’s clubs every night drinking, drugging and generally behaving like spoiled children (some of them Coker’s own adult children which further complicates the plot). This book reminded me not only of Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books in that there is a compelling mystery to be solved but also her novels such as Life After Life in which she so beautifully captures intersecting lives caught at a point in time. This is a quick absorbing read you will enjoy.

Six California Kitchens: A Collection of Recipes, Stories, and Cooking Lessons from a Pioneer of California Cuisine by Sally Schmitt with Bruce Smith

Marci Hoffman, Library Director

The Best Chef in the World | Op-Docs
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/sally-schmitt-french-laundry.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/us/french-laundry-restaurant.html

After reading these brief articles in The New York Times, I watched the short Op-Doc produced and directed by Ben Proudfoot. The Op-Doc was a joy to watch, and I loved learning about the original owner/chef of The French Laundry (later purchased and made more famous by Thomas Keller). Before Chez Panisse and Alice Waters, Sally Schmitt was cooking and running restaurants in Napa using fresh, local ingredients (farm to table concept). Shortly after her death in March 2022, her cookbook was released, see https://sixcaliforniakitchens.com/. This wonderful book is part cookbook, scrapbook, and memoir. Read and enjoy!

The Southpaw; Bang the Drum Slowly; It Seemed Like Forever by Mark Harris

Mel Eisenberg, Jesse H. Choper Professor of Law (Emeritus)

Mark Harris authored a series of novels written in the first person by Henry Wiggen, a pitcher. Three are excellent: in chronological order, The Southpaw, Bang the Drum Slowly (later made into a movie with Robert DeNiro), and It Seemed Like Forever, my favorite. The novels are set in a baseball milieu but they are not just baseball novels. The New York Times said about Bang the Drum Slowly that it “makes wonderful reading – whether one loves baseball or hates it,” and this is true of the other two novels as well.

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

Kathryn Hashimoto, Copyright Research Fellow, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

If you’ve read Otsuka’s previous novellas (The Buddha in the Attic; When the Emperor Was Divine), then you’re familiar with her style of writing, which includes use of the first-person plural narrative voice. It’s an effective way to efficiently convey the temperament of a specific community or group—in this case, the swimmers at a local pool and the upheaval that occurs when a crack is discovered at the bottom of the pool. The second half of the book shifts its voice and focus to one of the swimmers, a Japanese American woman and her family dealing with the personal upheaval of advancing dementia, and that is where the story becomes powerfully affecting. Otsuka’s thoughtful, moving book will stay with you after you finish reading it.

Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff

Marci Hoffman, Library Director

Yes, another book about Watergate. This is a worthy addition to books about Nixon and the “gate” that started the use of the suffix. It’s quite a hefty volume with more than 800 pages and an astounding number of footnotes, so you need to be committed to this topic to get through the book.* Graff, a well-known journalist and author, did not reinvestigate Watergate or conduct any new interviews from those who are still around. He utilized the mountain of existing archival records and documents – newspapers, government records, court records, the Nixon tapes, and other books and documentation.

The fact that there are so many new bits of information is amazing. There are stories I’ve never heard before, sources that are new to me, and interesting information on many other events and people that provide interesting background to Watergate. For example, I learned a lot more about Mark Felt (Deep Throat) and his role at the FBI before and during Watergate.

If you are interested in Nixon and Watergate, I highly recommend digging into the pages (and the footnotes) during the holiday break.

* I listened to the audio book during my long commute to the law school -- all 25 hours of it. I then purchased the book so I could review the footnotes and sources more closely – they are fascinating.

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds (YA)

Annette Counts, Librarian, Bishop O’Dowd High School; Spouse of Berkeley Law Grad Tom Counts

We Deserve Monuments is the classic plot set-up - teen from a cosmopolitan city moves to a small town and learns about herself, her family and the world. We Deserve Monuments takes the classic plot and delivers new, vivid characters addressing both age-old questions of belonging, identity and justice as well as currently contested ones such as who deserves monuments? The main characters, young lesbian women of color, find their way to each other while also finding a way to carry and live fully and authentically with generational family trauma and racism in its most obvious and most insidious forms. While these young characters deal with complex issues (the book also does an excellent job showing the effects of COVID on high schoolers who missed out on anticipated high school experiences) - We Deserve Monuments is full of love, laugh out loud moments, the healing power of nature, teenage joy and a cranky, unforgettable grandmother.

Wound From the Mouth of a Wound: Poems by torrin a. greathouse

Dean Rowan, Director, Reference and Research Services

In her flyleaf bio, greathouse describes herself as “a transgender cripple-punk,” a self-identification that informs the bulk of the poetry in this volume. greathouse has garnered numerous literary awards due to her work’s stark depiction of a life of pain, uncertainty, disability, and marginalization. These are emphatically autobiographical poems; indeed, in her helpful notes greathouse is critical of the “poets, educators, critics, and editors who believe that neither the form of a poem, nor the identities of its author, are relevant to the reading of that work.” I’m not so sure there are too many such readers around, but greathouse is not about to let anybody get away with attending merely to pretty words on a page. She draws from dysfunctional attributes of multiple lexicons—religion, myth, medicine, bureaucracy, the colloquial—and experiments with poetic forms and techniques, constellating enraged verbal brutality (“Still Life with Bedsores”) with faint glimmers of lyric (“A palm full of garlic cloves. A flight of headless doves.”), to pronounce a searing lament about our shared incapacity to accommodate differences among bodies, desires, drives, and needs. “On Using the Wo|men’s Bathroom” is a two-sided poem in which parallel columns represent the poet’s experiences in the titular spaces. “Ars Poetica or Sonnet to Be Written Across My Chest & Read in a Mirror, Beginning with a Line from Kimiko Hahn” is in fact set in mirror-image type. greathouse’s poetry is not difficult in the way that, say, the “meaning” of Wallace Stevens’ work can be elusive. Her message emerges loudly and clearly. Its difficulty is in a sustained cry of anguish born of injury inflicted upon the body and soul of a human being.