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lightreads ([personal profile] lightreads) wrote2022-02-21 01:58 pm

Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases

Fight of the Century Eds. Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman

3/5. A fundraising book, the overwhelming evidence suggests, and a star-studded one. Forty authors each wrote a short essay on a particular case, with wildly varying quality. Jacqueline Woodson, for one, took my breath away, while I'm still not sure WTF Neil Gaiman thought he was contributing here. And I have now developed a strong dislike for Brenda J. Child, who I'd never heard of before, based on her discussion of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, which is one of those essays whose principles I agree with, but where the author is so smug and blinkered about those principles that she does things like assuming only the people on her side are actual human beings. That's a particularly egregious way of thinking in respect to that case, of all cases.

Anyway, probably a good book for the civil rights history or legal history enthusiast.