Publisher’s note: The Texas Lawbook is pleased to offer this column in partnership with Texas-based Half Price Books sharing our readers’ favorite reads. “My Five Favorite Books” publishes every other Wednesday. Please email brooks.igo@texaslawbook.net if you’d like to share your favorite reads.
My sister-in-law is a librarian with an infectious love of books. Each time a niece or nephew celebrates a birthday, she takes them to Half Price Books to pick out a book (or two or three). This has been going on for years now, so you can imagine the sense of anticipation that has developed around this tradition. As attorneys, we read a lot. Not everything we read inspires anticipation and wonder. Here are five books that might:
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi
This is nonfiction. Douglas Preston, an American novelist, rented a villa in the Tuscan countryside to work on his next novel, only to learn that one of Italy’s most notorious serial murders occurred in the adjacent olive grove (explaining why he got such a good deal on the villa). Preston placed his novel project on hold to team up with veteran Italian journalist Mario Spezi to research and publish, for a global audience, an account of the infamous “Monster of Florence” murders and the sprawling criminal investigations and prosecutions that followed. But as the pair begins digging into old records and asking new questions, they arouse suspicion in the same ambitious prosecutor who would later bring sensational charges against American university student Amanda Knox. Why were these two so-called “journalists” so interested in this case? The pair find themselves drawn into the very investigation they set out to describe. The account is disturbing, intriguing, infuriating, and fascinating.
Charles Darwin: Voyaging by Janet Browne
In a Sunday school class years ago, the teacher asked the group to identify some “modern-day anti-Christs,” which most in the group took figuratively, and responses ranged from “celebrity culture” to “social media.” A white-haired man on the front row took the question more literally and blurted “Charles Darwin!” I did not leap to Darwin’s defense at the time, but that was before I read Charles Darwin: Voyaging by Janet Browne. This is the first part of a two-volume biography of the famous/infamous British naturalist. It covers his life to shortly before he published On the Origin of Species, the book that would have his name spoken for good and ill all these years later. Browne’s dense book itself is a work of genius and reflects a staggering amount of original research. It rewards the patient reader with a textured account of a young man beset by self-doubt and struggling to find his way in Victorian society, but one who is also endlessly curious, companionable, and game for adventure, leading to the famous Beagle voyage that would spark his dangerous ideas. No biography has done more to help me understand and admire its often misunderstood and maligned subject.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
As attorneys we sometimes find ourselves as parties to (and quiet observers of) segments of society to which we may not naturally belong. The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway, a young bond trader in whom strangers seem to naturally confide, as he witnesses the opulent Long Island social scene in the Roaring 1920s. This short novel contains deep and disturbing truths about human nature: our preoccupation with class, our willingness to forsake principles for comforts, and our capacity to fall in love with the idea of something (or someone) more than the thing itself. The spare, understated prose and staccato dialogue are laden with meaning, and the final sentence is poetic and haunting. If you haven’t read this book since high school, you may find that it stirs something very different in you now.
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
One of the most contented people I’ve known was a middle-aged woman in a tiny rural town in Bolivia. She took pride in sweeping the packed dirt in front of a home that, through the family’s hard work and frugality, was built of cinder block instead of the more common adobe. The house still did not have a front door (they were saving up for a good one) and was only half built inside, but it was a joyful home, where the woman and her husband raised two daughters. This book is one that (along with The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins) I read every year or so to try to keep my bearings. You could consider it a companion to The Great Gatsby for the insights it offers into money’s potential to make us into despicable versions of ourselves. But the book uses anecdotes, research, and insights to teach profound lessons on how money can amplify our better instincts just as well.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin
If, like me, you’ve accepted that George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones or “GOT”) book series is unlikely to be completed in our lifetimes, or if you love his masterful character and worldbuilding but are looking for a more focused and less bleak application, then A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms offers a lower-stakes, PG-13 Westeros adventure with likeable characters and engaging plot. The book combines three novellas set around 90 years before the events of the GOT series. The stories follow Dunk, a lowly hedge knight who has taken up the sword and faded shield of his recently deceased master, and Egg, a brash young squire he picks up along the way, as they seek glory and honor in the tourney circuit and beyond.
Nick Nelson is a partner at Nadler Nelson, PLLC, a Texas-based commercial litigation boutique. He can be reached at nnelson@nadlernelson.com.
Here are five more My Five Favorite Books columns from our readers you might have missed:
Andrew Gratz shares five books that have shaped how he thinks about leadership and how he approaches his work with executives, boards, and legal teams.
Natalie LeVeck reveals her long-standing (and deeply ingrained) obsession with true crime.
Though he reads far more about paid sick leave requirements, disability accommodations, and overtime exemptions these days, John Farrell shares five books he just loves.
Allison Cook shares five books she’s loved since getting back into reading.
Half Price Books Head of Legal Jennifer Rodriguez is drawn to books that weave storylines together and pull her in enough that I get to the “just one more chapter” stage.