In every office she’s ever had, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has kept a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Ladder of Saint Augustine.” There’s one stanza in particular that she likes:

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

“I love the idea that in order to be successful, it takes hard work,” Jackson says. “You can’t always control whether you’re the smartest person in the room, for example, but you [can] commit to being the hardest worker.”

Jackson traces her interest in studying law back to her childhood. When she was 4, her father enrolled in law school at the University of Miami. She remembers sitting at the kitchen table with her coloring books, across from her father and his stack of law journals.

“We would work together and he’d ask me questions,” she says. “It was really a bonding moment for me.”

Jackson went on to attend Harvard for both undergrad and law school. As a young lawyer, she says, she was often at the office before anyone else — and then she’d stay until everyone else had gone home. Working as a public defender helped shape the type of judge she would become.

“One of the things I discovered very early on was how few of my clients really understood what had happened to them in the trial process,” Jackson says. “And so when I became a judge, I really focused on being clear.”

In 2022, Jackson became the first Black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. During her first year on the bench, she spoke more than any other justice in that same term — a marked departure from past justices who sometimes take years before becoming vocal. Now Jackson is sharing her story in a new memoir, Lovely One. (The title of the book derives from a translation of Jackson’s West African name, “Ketanji Onyika.”)

Lovely One

Penguin Random House

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Interview highlights

On learning about Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court

Judge Motley was appointed to the court in the ‘60s, I believe. And this is the court in the Southern District of New York. And I was born in 1970. And when I was in late elementary school, early middle school, I came across an article about her in Essence or Ebony, one of the Black magazines that my parents subscribed to. And, gosh, I mean, it was such an eye opener for me, in part because I learned that we share a birthday, September 14th. We were born on exactly the same day, 49 years apart. …

And so here we had this woman who was a lawyer and who had gone on to be a judge, and the thought of being a judge just kind of planted in my mind. And it was something I guess I’d always wanted to do. And this was also around the time when Justice O’Connor had been appointed to the Supreme Court. So now we had a woman judge on the Supreme Court. I just remember those things being very motivational for me, early on.

On growing up in D.C. with parents from the South, who wanted her to be proud of being Black

I was born at this very, very pivotal time in American history. I was a first inheritor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream … if Dr. Martin Luther King presented America with a metaphorical check come due, my generation reaped the first installment. So what it meant for my parents, who were now young people with a baby coming of age in this really, sort of time of opportunity after being so limited in their upbringing, they wanted me to do all of the activities that they had been restricted in doing. But they also felt pretty strongly that it was important to shore up my own self-esteem. Having grown up in a society in which there was so much negative imagery and messaging about African Americans, they were worried that that would undermine my ability to perform in white spaces. And so they carefully monitored what I watched and worked on the inputs.

On what she was like in high school

It was a predominantly white school. … I was popular. I was the student body president three years in a row. So I had a lot of friends and people who liked me, but no dates, which got to be a little bit of an issue my senior year because the student body president, one of the things you’re responsible for is planning the prom. And I wasn’t going to go until a friend of mine who was a junior said, “Who are you going to go to prom with?” And I was like, “No one.” And he was like, “Well, why don’t I take you? Why don’t we go together?” So I went with him, just so I could go and not be totally left out of an activity that I was planning. But it was not easy to be a high school student and feeling like everybody else is dating and people have crushes, and not being a part of the culture was a little challenging.

On how she met her husband at Harvard

So I am in this class, and he’s cute. He’s sitting behind me. He’s chatting with me and tapping on my shoulder and doing silly things. And afterwards we start to develop a friendship, talking about the material. And he would walk me to my next class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and then on Tuesday and Thursday, I thought I saw him in our government class, and I would lean down the row and wave and he would, like, roll his eyes like, “Who is this lady?” And I thought, this is kind of weird. Like, why would this guy be so nice to be on some days and not on the others? And I told my roommates about it and they were like, “Leave him alone. He’s crazy. You don’t want to be with a crazy person!” One of the nice days … I went up to him and I said, “Why don’t you speak to me in our government class?” And he said, “I’m not taking a government class.” And I said, “Yes, you are.” And then it dawned on him that I must be talking about his twin brother.

On how she had her husband have both balanced career and family

I think very early on we kind of decided to take turns. We could see how there would be different points in each of our careers where the other person’s professional needs would have to take precedence. It’s like we could have it all, but not at the same time. And so there were periods when he was in his surgical residency, for example, he couldn’t do anything more than the 20 hours of service that they required in the hospital, sleeping overnight, doing [it] all. And so then I took a lot of the home responsibilities. And when I was clerking for the Supreme Court, it was flipped. He took time out of his residency to do research in Washington, came down and supported me. He brought me dinner at the Court.

Sam Briger and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Krishnadev Calamur adapted it for the web.

The fall to-do list is long: There are apples to be picked, Oktoberfest beers to sip, elections to vote in, and of course — so many new books to read! We sorted through the current and upcoming releases to find 16 titles you should watch out for this fall. Dive in!

Fiction

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Sept. 3) Kushner’s new novel is about a spy named Sadie Smith (great spy name), infiltrating an eco-extremist group in southern France. The book’s already being met with great reviews, including a spot on the longlist for the Booker Prize, the UK’s fanciest literary award.

Guide Me Home by Attica Locke (Sept. 3) Darren Matthews is a detective pulled out of retirement for one last case. This time it’s the case of a Black college student missing from an all white sorority. Locke is a longtime hand at writing crime novels, and this is the conclusion of her Highway 59 trilogy.

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Sept. 17) Enriquez has made a name for herself blending supernatural horrors (ghosts, haunted houses, witches, that sort of thing) with the concrete horrors of everyday life in Argentina. Her last novel was a nearly 600-page tome, but this newest one is a collection of shorts – like a pillowcase full of trick-or-treat candies.

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (Oct. 1) The newest Erdrich release (which is always a big deal in the literary world) will take place during the economic crisis of 2008. There’s something of a love triangle in this book, with a woman named Kismet at the center. But Kismet’s mother has reason to worry about Kismet’s future.

The Great When by Alan Moore (Oct. 1) The legendary comic book writer returns with his first novel since 2016’s Jerusalem. This new one takes place in postwar London, following a young bookshop employee named Dennis who find a copy of a book from a different, more fantastical London.

Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon (Oct. 15) Dixon is the author behind the Ice Planet Barbarians series, a world of romance/erotica books with a fairly outlandish premise (Women land on a planet of sexy aliens. They do stuff together). Her new book is the start of a whole new world where our hero Aspeth Honori marries a minotaur.

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer (Oct. 22) The popular Southern Reach trilogy becomes a quadrilogy nearly 10 years after the original series was released. This newest book is a prequel, exploring the origins of the mysterious Area X.

The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel (Nov. 19) The latest novel from Japanese writer Haruki Murakami comes out in English this fall. It’s his first in six years, taking place in a fantastical realm where people read dreams and shadows can become untethered from their source. In classic Murakami fashion, the book touches on themes of loss, loneliness, and isolation.

Nonfiction

Lovely One: A Memoir by Ketanji Brown Jackson (Sept. 3) America’s first Black female Supreme Court justice writes a memoir detailing her early childhood, and the hurdles she faced coming up in the legal world.

We’re Alone: Essays by Edwidge Danticat (Sept. 3) This essay collection finds Danticat looking back at her native country of Haiti. Not with the naive rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, but with full awareness of the complicated nature of “resilience” and the mixed feelings anyone has about where they came from.

Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot (Sept. 10) For the person in your life obsessed with presidential biographies, Boot’s newest book is a deeply reported look into the life of Ronald Reagan. Covering his childhood, his Hollywood years and, of course, his presidency, Boot portrays a man that is somehow both more ideological and more pragmatic than we might think.

Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung (Sept. 17) Connie Chung is a broadcast legend. As the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News as well as the first Asian to anchor a national news broadcast in the U.S., Chung has got loads of stories to share about breaking into the industry and dealing with rivals and the other men in her way.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Oct. 1) Coates’ 2015 book Between the World and Me made a huge splash, winning awards and audiences as it addressed race in America. Since then, Coates has written comics, a novel, and did some reporting. And this new book is the result of that reporting, documenting his travels everywhere from the West Bank to Columbia, South Carolina, in order to come to terms with the myths we tell ourselves.

Sonny Boy: A Memoir by Al Pacino (Oct. 15) It was Pacino’s mom that first used the nickname Sonny Boy. It comes from an Al Jolson song she used to sing to him. The book digs deep into old memories like this one, detailing his childhood in the South Bronx and how he fell in love with the craft of filmmaking.

War by Bob Woodward (Oct. 15) The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist continues his run of deeply reported portrayals of what’s going on in the upper echelons of American government. This new book examines President Biden’s handling of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and how former president Trump has been spending his time in the run-up to this November’s election.

High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul by Marcus J. Moore (Nov. 19) It’s been a little over a year now since the influential hip hop group De La Soul made its way onto streaming platforms. Which means we’re overdue for a big book about them. Music writer Marcus J. Moore tells the story of what made this band work, re-contextualizing them for old heads and introducing them to new listeners alike.