In his post below, David mentions Kevin Merida & Michael Fletcher’s new biography of Justice Thomas. I recently finished the book, and my take is mixed. The book’s first half, which mostly covers Thomas’s childhood and family, is pretty interesting. Merida & Fletcher interviewed tons of people, and the book offers lots information on Thomas that is hard to find elsewhere. The book goes downhill in the second half, which is more on Thomas as an adult and as a judge. Merida & Fletcher are not lawyers, and they tend to see conservative legal views as an expression of lack of sympathy for others. As a result, they get wrapped up in questions that will strike sophisticated readers as quite silly (such as, how could Justice Thomas be such a nice guy personally and yet endorse such uncaring views of the law?). Finally, it’s worth noting that we’ll get Justice Thomas’s own take soon: his memoirs will be published in October.