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Ketanji Brown Jackson Looks Forward to Reading Fiction Again
What books are on your night stand? “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism,”by Justice Stephen Breyer, and “All That She Carried,” by Tiya Miles. I also have a stack of memoirs — by Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Michelle Obama …
What books are on your night stand?
“Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism,”by Justice Stephen Breyer, and “All That She Carried,” by Tiya Miles. I also have a stack of memoirs — by Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Michelle Obama, Sonia Sotomayor — that I have been poring over for the past two years, using them as inspiration for my own.
Describe your ideal reading experience.
Sitting in a beach chair under a big umbrella. As secluded a spot as I can find, listening to the sound of waves and sea gulls, watching the tide come in. It should be so relaxing — and the book should be so thought-provoking — that I occasionally close my eyes to ponder a point and drift off to sleep. I wake up with the book open in my lap, thinking, “Where was I?”
What kind of reader were you as a child? Which books and authors stick with you most?
Pretty voracious. My favorite childhood books were Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” series. I really identified with Meg. I also liked Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” And I went through a Nancy Drew phase.
Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?
My parents were educators, so I can’t imagine they would have ever punished me for reading something. Reading was praised in my household.
What book has had the greatest impact on you?
This is too hard a question. There have been so many influences, from the Bible to encyclopedias, teen self-help books, travel guides, legal treatises, to the pregnancy and parenting manuals that literally taught me how to survive those stages of my life. You have to remember: I came up before you could just ask the internet whatever you wanted to know.
Why was it important that your memoir “moves seamlessly between law and life”?
I thought that a memoir about my ascension to the Supreme Court should introduce and focus in on cases that have some intersection with my personal narrative. And, as it turns out, there is a lot of intersection, because the law has had such a direct impact on my family and on the lived experience of Black people in this country generally.
