At 35, Alex Kozinski became the youngest judge on the 9th Circuit bench when President Reagan appointed him to that court. Last September, Kozinski was on a panel of judges that decided to proceed with California's recall election.
In the third installment of our summer reading series he talks about the books he's reading -- and the audio books he takes on a two-hour roundtrip commute. Here's a list of what's on his shelves and in his stereo system:
Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King
The true story of shipwrecked merchant ship crew struggling to survive in the Sahara reminds him of Daniel Defoe's classic Robinson Crusoe. He's on the third of nine tapes.
An Old Man's Love by Anthony Trollope
The story of William Whittlestaff, the guardian of an old friend's penniless daughter, and Whittlestaff's unrequited love for the young woman. Trollope completed the novel seven months before he died. Kozinski enjoys print and audio editions of books by Trollope, an overlooked contemporary of Charles Dickens. He also recently finished Trollope's autobiography.
Fiction Anthologies: Playboy Stories and The Bedside Playboy
The collections feature works by such acclaimed writers as John Irving and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Kozinski read many of these stories in his teens and 20s when they were first published in Playboy. One of his favorites is a thriller called Duel by Richard Matheson, which Steven Spielberg adapted for film.
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