I forgot about this one

I normally buy all my books new or used. I used to go to the public library all the time when I was a kid. I stopped checking books out many years ago when I found some pages in a book ripped, torn, and marked up making the text unreadable. It also made me think about who had the book and what was done to it before me although that is definitely my wild imagination leading me astray. Since then I never bothered to go back to the library even though I should continue to support it. My girlfriend goes to the library for just about everything. I rather go to B&N or Borders or even better a good used bookstore before I resort going to a library. I know. It's quite a contradiction if I'll buy used books but not patronize the public library for free. I don't get it either.

But in a very rare moment, my girlfriend placed herself on the waiting list for one book that I was intending to read, but I forgot after my attention turned elsewhere. That seems to be a rather common theme for me ... Anyways ... the first book that I am officially reading to begin my summer reading list is ...

• Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

And I'm already hooked on it. It's a very solid read. Here's an excerpt from the first page that caught my attention:

The architect Cass Gilbert had grand ambitions for his design of a new home for the Supreme Court -- what he called "the greatest tribunal in the world, one of the three great elements of our national government" ... How could Gilbert convey to visitors the magnitude and importance of the judicial process taking place within the Court's walls?

The answer, he decided, was steps. Gilbert pushed back the wings of the building, so that the public face of the building would be a portico with a massive and imposing stairway. Visitors would not have to walk a long distance to enter, but few would forget the experience of mounting those forty-four steps to the double row of eight massive columns supporting the roof. The walk up the stairs would be the central symbolic experience of the Supreme Court, a physical manifestation of the American march to justice. The stairs separated the Court form the everyday world -- and especially from the earthly concerns of the politicians in the Capitol -- and announced that the justices would operate, literally, on a higher plane (1).