I am so excited to be kicking off another year with my column here at Shereads.com. If you don’t know me, I am Traci Thomas, creator and host of The Stacks, which is a podcast all about, you guessed it, BOOKS! I interview authors, talk to book lovers, and even host a monthly book club. I am living the bookish dream. In addition to the podcast, I am just an avid reader who loves to proselytize my favorites to the world and match readers with books I think they’ll love.
Enter this column.
When I first started writing for shereads.com in 2021, I was giving you all book pairings. I’d pick three brand new releases and share two backlist titles that paired nicely with them. Then in 2022, we switched it up and I started giving bookish tips with “Advice in The Stacks” where I would answer all of your burning book questions from what to do with unsolicited book recs, to how to pick books for a book club.
Now, in 2024 we’re melding those two previous iterations of the column into something timely and really exciting.
You may have heard 2024 is a presidential election year in the United States. There are a lot of issues on the table that are being bandied about in the press from gun control to genocide, from health care to book bans. I’m going to try and help you all read toward the issues this year. Each month I will share a few books I recommend on a current topic of interest. I will be sharing both backlist gems and brand new releases. I am also open to your input on which topics you want me to cover, so please submit topics here.
Now that you know the drill, our first topic for the “Voter Literacy, with Traci” coverage is The Supreme Court. You know, the nine justices that are pulling the strings of the USA? I think understanding what they do and how they do it, will help to make sense of a lot of what is to come this year.
Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal
If you’re like me (aka not a lawyer) your eyes can gloss over when trying to read and understand the goings on in the world of US courts. I don’t understand what a motion is, or what a certain question can be alluding to, I actually don’t understand a lot of it. However, this book, Allow Me to Retort broke it down in a way that I could really comprehend what is at stake and how it is being negotiated. Mystal has a strong point of view. He is not neutral he is guiding us to make sense of the supreme court and their equally not neutral rulings. This book is a great entry point into SCOTUS.
The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic by Stephen Vladeck
The Shadow Docket is an incredibly detailed look into the uptick of emergency rulings that SCOTUS has been issuing since 2017. These rulings are often referred to as “shadow dockets” because they happen behind the scenes, don’t require public hearings, and can be issued in the middle of the night. They have huge impacts on the American legal system and are not easy to hold to account or even understand. This book breaks down what exactly is going on, how, and why.
Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman
I really loved this book, it is an anthology of essays about a myriad of ACLU cases taken to the supreme court. It features cases from the 1920s through to 2020. Ones I knew like Brown v. Board of Education and others I’d never heard of. The essays are really smart and thoughtful and helped me to think about the court and the law in new ways. I didn’t even mention the best part, the contributors in this collection are stacked, folks like Jesmyn Ward, Brit Bennett, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and so many more. You get a glimpse into how arguments are structured and how The Supreme Court’s thinking has changed and evolved over the years. I also listened to this book on audio, and there is a full cast of wonderful audiobook narrators along with the voices of your favorite authors and even some celebrities (hello, Samuel L. Jackson)!
While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams
If you’re looking for a little fiction to learn about SCOTUS then look no further than this thriller of a novel from lawyer, politician, and romance novelist, Stacey Abrams. In While Justice Sleeps we get to follow a law clerk for a supreme court justice who is up to now good. The book is a fast paced right through judiciary land and is a fun way to get inside those black robes. If you like this, there is now a sequel called Rogue Justice you can check out.
You can hear Stacey Abrams on The Stacks discussing one of her romance novels here.
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