Find your next fall read
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
A fascinating exploration of wills and estates set in locations ranging from New England to California. This pleasant tale of generational wealth is sure to transport you to the beautiful Salinas Valley, so make sure to pick this one up when you don’t want to worry about those maps that you have been putting off making for weeks!
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
As the consensus heavyweight of the modernist epic crafts a narrative that is part indecipherable fictional language and part allegorical existential crisis… wait, why does this sound like my torts hypothetical from last week?
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Can shared personal development be the basis for a finding of common law partnership? No. Should it be? Also, no. Sally Rooney shows you why in this unconventional bildungsroman that—unsurprisingly—comes to a sudden end once the two main characters finally learn how to talk about their feelings.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In this narrative, which is almost as thrilling as Lord Denning found cricket, the private nuisance of a green light is lawfully installed on a Long Island property in an opulent old-money neighbourhood. It eventually leads to a diminishment in the amenity value of both the narrator’s property and his cousin’s. Ultimately, this loss leads to severe anguish as the character of the neighbourhood undergoes change, leaving the protagonist without an adequate remedy. If only he had just sought an injunction when he could!
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
An America
n in Paris tries to keep two futures alive at once, an impending marriage that promises respectability and a love affair that demands honesty. As the protagonist does so, most of the action takes place in small spaces: bars, kitchens, and the cramped room that becomes both refuge and a pressure cooker. While this is laid out, Baldwin’s sentences are clean and unsparing—the novel reads like a patient inventory of desire, shame, and the prices we pay to stay legible to ourselves and others. By the end, what began as a mere possibility contracts into a dire consequence. All things considered, the promises made in Giovanni’s Room look a lot like an oral agreement without consideration, unenforceable in daylight and void for mutual mistake about identity.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
In this seminal work of high fantasy, a nigh-omnipotent antagonist with nefarious aims, Sauron, seeks the safe return of property he lost, and never intended to abandon, following a dispute with a rival collective. A fellowship then embarks on a journey to ensure that he never achieves this aim. Needless to say, the fellowship is lucky that Wicks Estate v. Harnett is clearly of no precedential value in Middle-earth….
Love Poems by Pablo Neruda
A sensuous collection where bodies turn into coastlines, and evenings into witnesses.These lyrics move from whispered address to tidal sweep, always returning to the stubborn fact that longing leaves behind evidence. Read it for the clean urgency of the voice and the way ordinary images, sea, fruit, and rain, take on the weight of confession. After all, it is intimate without feeling small, and lush without losing clarity. The kind of book you keep within reach for both ache and comfort. Highly recommended for people who need something more interesting in their love life than the “law student” title on their Hinge profile.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Simply an excellent book.