The Legal Staff's 2010 Summer Reading List

"Summer vacation" means something very different to us as adults than it did during our school years. Whereas in childhood and adolescence it meant whole months of relaxation, these days it's more likely to be a long weekend at the shore, a week at Disney World or the Outer Banks with family, or a single afternoon in the backyard hammock.

What hasn't changed is the association of summers with reading. As attorneys (and reporters and editors) we all do our fair share of required reading on a daily basis, so it might seem counter-intuitive that we'd want to read more in our leisure time. But the joy of relaxing with a good book, even if it's just for an hour at the end of a busy summer day, is a pleasure we continue to seek out. Reading, after all, is a vacation for your mind.

With that in mind, the editorial staff of the Legal turned our own beach bags and bedside tables inside out and upside down to bring you our very own summer reading list — the books we will be enjoying whenever we can steal away a quiet moment or two. We hope you'll enjoy.

"Road Dogs" (William Morrow) by Elmore Leonard

Leonard's latest novel tells the story of two "road dogs" — a streetwise term for prison buddies known for fearsome loyalty to one another — who have their friendship tested after one, a bank robber, dodges the bulk of a lengthy prison sentence with the help of the other, a wealthy crime kingpin.

Now out of jail and stalked by a zealous FBI agent, the bank robber is tempted by a proposal from the imprisoned kingpin's wife to run off with his millions. - Jeremy Barker, Associate Editor

"Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook" (Ecco/Harper Collins) by Anthony Bourdain

Bourdain — renowned chef, acclaimed writer, "No Reservations" television host, world traveler and rock 'n' roller — is back with the follow-up to his 2000 New York Times bestseller, "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly."

"Medium Raw" swiftly draws the reader into Bourdain's adventurous life as a global traveler and professional eater in this series of well-constructed rants, short essays and revealing confessions, for which Bourdain became famous in his debut a decade earlier. But while the two memoirs share similar structures and overall content, they differ in tone. Bourdain is no longer the same disgruntled, angry young cook, but a recently remarried ...