The gift shop on the ground floor of the U.S. Supreme Court building offers all manner of knickknacks and mementos—gavels, paper weights, Christmas ornaments and neckties. But the shop is dominated by books about the court, from children’s picture books to serious biographies and legal tomes.
Increasingly, the sales shelves are packed with books written by some of the life-tenured jurists who have chambers one floor above. Four current justices have published books while on the bench, two more have deals for forthcoming books, and one retired justice has numerous titles and is still churning out books.
It seems almost quaint that in 1988, then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist fretted over a request from the Supreme Court Historical Society to sell a book he wrote in the gift shop it operates at the court.
“Thinking this through as best I can it seems alright to me, but I shall be very much influenced by the views of any of those of you who feel otherwise,” Rehnquist wrote in a memo to his colleagues. (Several wrote back to say they had no problem with it.)
Two fresh books, with more due soon
Among the current members of the court, Justice Clarence Thomas published a memoir in 2007, My Grandfather’s Son, in which he recounted his hardscrabble upbringing in rural Georgia and reflected on his brutal confirmation process. He received a reported $1.5 million advance from his publisher, and the book was a bestseller with some 237,000 copies sold. The normally press-shy justice even went on 60 Minutes to promote the book.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic member of the court, received a reported $1.2 million advance for her 2013 memoir, My Beloved World, which told of her youth in the Bronx and her rise through the legal profession. That book sold more than 320,000 print copies. And that memoir, along with her other books, which include a young adult edition of the memoir and several children’s books, have earned her $3.7 million.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch has been the lead author of two books since he joined the court in 2017, A Republic, If You Can Keep It and Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law. Neither is a memoir but deals with judicial philosophy and challenges for the legal system. Citing industry sales data, The New York Times reported this month that those books and an earlier volume Gorsuch wrote about euthanasia collectively have sold a more modest 64,000 print copies.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is the latest to publish a memoir. Lovely One, a deeply personal account of her journey to becoming the first Black female on the court, came out earlier this month and launched her on a whirlwind publicity tour that has taken her from concert halls and Black churches to television interviews with news anchors, late-night show hosts such as Stephen Colbert and the ladies of The View.
“I wrote several sections from scratch myself, because I really wanted it to reflect my authentic tone and views,” Jackson told The New York Times Book Review in a recent interview during which she acknowledged a “brilliant collaborator,” who goes uncredited in the book.
Two other members of the court have books in the works. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court in 2020, received a reported $2 million deal (she reported on her financial disclosures being paid $425,000 so far) for a book that will presumably touch on her large family and her career as a law professor before taking the bench.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who joined the court in 2018 after a contentious confirmation process, has a book contract with an undisclosed advance figure, but he reported a $340,000 payment from his publisher on his 2023 financial disclosure form.