Optional Leisure Reading for Fall 2023 Incoming Students

Updated: April 18, 2023.

You may find the books and sources below interesting to read during your leisure time. Links to more information at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and publisher websites are provided. Again, these are not mandatory readings.

• Novice
  • How to Read a Law School Casebook
  • How to Write a Case Brief for Law School
  • Briefing Cases
  • Basic Concepts of American Jurisprudence
  • Federal Court Role and Structure
  • Comparing Federal and State Courts
  • Federal Courts and the Public
  • Kansas Interactive Map by Judicial District
• General
  • Bridging the Gap Between College and Law School: Strategies for Success by Ruta K. Stropus and Charlotte D. Taylor. 3rd ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2014) (CAP website)
  • Reading Like a Lawyer: Time-Saving Strategies for Reading Law Like an Expert by Ruth Ann McKinney. 2nd ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2012) (CAP website)
• How to Think About Studying Law
  • Expert Learning for Law Students by Michael Hunter Schwartz. 2nd ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2008) (Carolina Academic Press)
  • Introduction to the Study and Practice of Law by Kenney F. Hegland. 8th ed. (2020) (Amazon.com | West Academic)
  • A Student's Guide to Legal Analysis by Patrick M. McFadden (2001) (Amazon.com
• How to Adjust Academically
  • 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor's Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School by Andrew J. McClurg. 3rd ed. (2017) (Amazon.com | West Academic)
  • The Law School Survival Guide (2003) (Amazon.com | Barnes and Noble)
  • Acing Your First Year of Law School by Shana Connell Noyes and Henry S. Noyes. 2nd ed. (William S. Hein, 2008) (Hein website)
  • Starting Off Right in Law School by Carolyn J. Nygren. 2nd ed. (Carolina Academic Press, 2011) (CAP website)
  • Law School Without Fear by Helene Shapo and Marshall Shapo. 3rd ed. (2009) (Amazon.com | West Academic)
  • 1000 Days to the Bar by Dennis J. Tonsing (2003) (Amazon.com)
• How to Do Well On Exams
  • How to Study Law and Take Law Exams by Ann M. Burkhart and Robert A. Stein (1996) (Amazon.com)
  • How To Do Your Best on Law School Exams by John Delaney. Rev. ed. (2012) (Amazon.com)
  • Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams by Richard Michael Fischl and Jeremy Paul (Carolina Academic Press, 1999) (Amazon.com | CAP website)
• Racial Justice Readings Recommended by Faculty
  • 1619 Project and Podcast by Nikole Hannah-Jones (recommended by Professor Chadwick)
  • American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass by Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton (recommended by Professor Boyack)
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison (recommended by Professors Elrod and Sourgens)
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (recommended by Professor Elrod)
  • Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt (recommended by Professor Janet Jackson)
  • Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (recommended by Dean Lowry)
  • The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes edited by Arnold Rampersad (recommended by Professor Westbrook)
  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (recommended by Professor Boyack)
  • The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran (recommended by Professor Boyack)
  • A Conversation on Race by The New York Times (video) (recommended by Professor Kowalska)
  • Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (recommended by Professor Judd)
  • Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today by Mia Tuan (recommended by Professor Glashausser)
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (recommended by Professor Ewert)
  • How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (recommended by Dean Pratt)
  • The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (recommended by Professor Marsha Griggs)
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (recommended by Professors Francis, Grant, Martin, Matthews, and Ramirez)
  • Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black by Gregory Howard Williams(recommended by Professor Glashausser)
  • March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (3-volume graphic/illustrated novel) (recommended by Professor Kowalska)
  • Native Son by Richard Wright (recommended by Professor Alaka)
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (recommended by Professors Francis, Grant, Martin, and Ramirez)
  • A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn (recommended by Professor Matthews)
  • Pulled Over: How Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship by Charles R. Epp, Steven Maynard-Muddy, and Donald Haider-Markel (recommended by Professor Hodgkinson)
  • Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (recommended by Professor Ewert)
  • Saving the Neighborhood: Racially Restrictive Covenants, Law and Social Norms by Carol M. Rose and Richard R. W. Brooks (recommended by Professor Boyack)
  • Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger (recommended by Dean Lowry and Professor Westbrook)
  • Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (recommended by Professor Chadwick)
  • Shattered Bonds: The Color Of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts (recommended by Professor Chadwick)
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (recommended by Professor Janet Jackson)
  • Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi (recommended by Dean Pratt)
  • Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism by Stokely Carmichael (recommended by Professor Marsha Griggs)
  • Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau (recommended by Professor Sourgens)
  • There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz (recommended by Professor Alaka)
  • Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom (recommended by Professor Ewert)
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (recommended by Dean Leisinger and Professor Hodgkinson)
  • Waking Up White by Debby Irving (recommended by Professor Grant)
  • "Was Blind But Now I See:" White Race Consciousness and the Law by Barbara J. Flagg (recommended by Professor Elrod)
  • White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (recommended by Professors Grant and Kowalska
  • Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White by Frank Wu (recommended by Professor Francis)

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