• 

  Why Jury Duty Matters: A Citizen’s Guide to Constitutional Action

  by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

  

  The Nutshell:

  University of the District of Columbia legal scholar and former public defender Ferguson takes us into jury deliberation rooms and reviews the intentions of the Founding Fathers to show how our responsibility—and right—to serve on a jury of our peers helps uphold the U.S. Constitution.

  Literary Lovechild Of:

  Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men and Laurence H. Tribe and Michael C. Dorf’s On Reading the Constitution.

  You'll Find It On Your Bookshelf If:

  When your jury duty summons arrives in the mail, you start to dance around like you’ve just won a golden ticket.

  Cocktail Party Fodder:

  Today, the U.S. holds 90 percent of the world’s criminal jury trials and almost all its civil jury trials.

  For Optimal Benefit:

  Leave these sprinkled around juror waiting rooms at the courthouse. People deserve a dose of guilt.

  Snap Judgment:

  Ferguson’s close reading of constitutional precepts is compelling—but nothing could be compelling enough to get most readers jonesing to serve on a jury.

• 

  In Pursuit of Giants: One Man’s Global Search for the Last of the Great Fish

  by Matt Rigney

  

  The Nutshell:

  A 2007 issue of National Geographic dedicated to “Saving the Sea’s Bounty” spurred writer and lifelong New England fisherman Rigney to try to figure out how the hobby he loved had destroyed itself—and to search for the transcendence he found out on the water in some of the most overfished places around the globe.

  Literary Lovechild Of:

  Mark Kurlansky’s Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea.

  You'll Find It On Your Bookshelf If:

  The only fish you’re eating these days are bottom feeders. Pass the sardines?

  Cocktail Party Fodder:

  The largest marlin ever caught on rod and reel (as opposed to commercially) was a black marlin caught off the coast of Peru in 1953 that weighed 1,560 pounds, had a girth of 6 feet 9 inches, and measured 14 feet 6 inches across.

  For Optimal Benefit:

  Read well after you fulfill your dream of enjoying the world’s great fish off the unclothed body of a nyotaimori sushi model.

  Snap Judgment:

  Rigney’s not your typical environmental writer, and his stories read more like Jon Krakauer than John Muir—which makes his arguments against the international fishing industry all the more convincing.

• 

  Constantine: The Emperor

  by David Potter

  

  The Nutshell:

  In this political biography of Constantine the Great, University of Michigan classicist Potter seeks to put Constantine’s conversion to Christianity into the context of his life, times, and rule—paying just as much attention to the era as to the man.

  Literary Lovechild Of:

  Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince and Martin E. Marty’s Martin Luther: A Life.

  You'll Find It On Your Bookshelf If:

  You’re still mad that your idol Constantine got a raw deal from Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code.

  Cocktail Party Fodder:

  Rome’s rulers for centuries pretended they were amazed, surprised, or worried at the prospect of becoming emperor—they weren’t supposed to seek power but to be revealed by the gods.

  For Optimal Benefit:

  Read while on the throne.

  Snap Judgment:

  Potter shows admirable fealty to his sources—yet still manages to make his subject and his fellow Romans feel like humans living out personal and political dramas.