Law & Politics Book Review
LPBR Supreme Court

 
Legal Fiction
 
Legal Fiction Reviews
 
Vol. 18 No. 4 (April, 2008) pp. 288-290
 Novels: Legal Fiction

 

Editor's Note
 



This marks the first special issue on Legal Fiction from THE LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW. Thanks to Mary Atwell and Jack Call (both at Radford University), who commissioned reviews and edited this special issue.


This was a major undertaking, and Mary and Jack did a superb job of it.  Finally, special thanks go to our 22 reviewers, whose reviews represent a most valuable resource to our larger community.
 
INTRODUCTION
 


Often during the fifteen years we have been colleagues in the criminal justice department at Radford University, we have talked about including works of fiction in our classes.  Each of us has favorites.  Jack is partial to RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY and SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS.  Mary often uses TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and A LESSON BEFORE DYING. We agreed it would be interesting to find out how others who teach courses in political science, criminal justice, or law use novels in their teaching.

We approached Wayne McIntosh to propose a special issue of the LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW devoted to fiction.  In it, contributors would discuss specifically their interest and experience with novels as sources for student learning.  In October we sent out a request for reviewers.  Although we provided a list of books that seemed appropriate, we also asked for suggestions from potential contributors who might discuss novels they had used effectively.  The response was immediate and enthusiastic.  Professors from a variety of universities and disciplines either volunteered to consider a book from our list or suggested a work they and their students found particularly worthwhile. A list of all the proposed books, whether reviewed or not, is included below. 

Thanks to our excellent contributors, the special issue includes twenty-two reviews of American, British, and European novels from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

It has been a pleasure to serve as guest editors.  We hope readers of the LPBR will find this special issue interesting and informative.

 

Book   Author   Book   Author
1984
George Orwell
I, Robot  
Isaac Asimov
Advise and Consent
Allen Drury
Involuntary Witness 
Gianrico Carofiglio
All the King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren
The Jungle
Upton Sinclair
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Walter Mosely
Knock on Any Door 
Willard Motley
An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser
The Last Hurrah
Edwin O’Connor
At End of Day
George V. Higgins
A Lesson Before Dying
Ernest Gaines
Billy Budd
Herman Melville
The Monkeywrench Game 
Edward Abbey
Bleak House
Charles Dickens
The Once and Future King
T.H. White
Bodega’s Dream
Ernesto Quinonez
The Ox-bow Incident 
Walter von Tilburg Clark
Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe
Paradise
Toni Morrison
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
The Plague  
Albert Camus
The Caine Mutiny
Herman Wouk
Presumed Innocent
Scott Turow
Cat’s Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Protect and Defend
Richard North Patterson
The Cave
Jose Saramago
Pudd’nhead Wilson
Mark Twain
The Chamber
John Grisham
Render the Body
Marianne Wesson
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
Rumpole of the Bailey
John Mortimer
The Constant Gardener
John Le Carre
Rumpole for the Prosecution
John Mortimer
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Saturday
Ian McEwan
Darkness at Noon
Arthur Koestler
Seeing
Jose Saramago
Defending Billy Ryan
George V. Higgins
Snow Falling on Cedars
David Guterson
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Richard Louis Stevenson
The Stranger
Albert Camus
Famous All Over Town
Danny Santiago
Love in the Time of Butterflies
Julia Alvarez
The Fixer
Bernard Malamud
A Time to Kill
John Grisham
Giovanni’s Room
James Baldwin
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
The Good Terrorist 
Doris Lessing
The Reader
Bernhard Schlink
The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
The Seven Who Were Hanged
Leonid Andreyev
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
J.K. Rowling
The Trial
Franz Kafka
A House of Sand and Fog
Andre Dubus
The Virginian
Owen Wister
The Human Stain
Philip Roth
Waiting for the Barbarians
J.M. Coetzee
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Joanne Greenberg
Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine 
Bebe Moore Campbell

 

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