8. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

The Nine: Inside the Secret World
of the Supreme Court
By Jeffrey Toobin
Publisher: Doubleday
384 pages

$29.95

An organization as closed, powerful and secretive as the Supreme Court, and as driven by powerful personalities, seems almost un-American, even though it protects and maintains the core of what makes this country work. Maybe that's why it's so fascinating. Toobin does an excellent job of introducing us to those personalities, with surprising access, penetrating analysis and a brisk narrative style. At their best the Supremes appear as heroic scholars of justice; at their worst they display all-too-human failings, including "vanity, overconfidence, impatience, arrogance and simple political partisanship."