Lazy B: Growing Up On a Cattle Ranch In the American Southwest (2002)

The first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was once very much at home on the range. O'Connor grew up on the Arizona-New Mexico border on her family's Lazy B Ranch, home to 2,000 cows. Dad was a perfectionist who could fix anything (and there was always the medicinal ''dollop of Scotch or bourbon if all else failed'') and instilled a competitive spirit in his three offspring. Mom dispatched her backbreaking duties as a ranch wife while ''maintain[ing] her white skin, her good looks, and her well-dressed appearance.'' Though the book — cowritten with O'Connor's younger brother — can be as dry as a commissioned report, it's also refreshingly free of pretense. And sprinkled throughout are tiny jewels, including fragments of letters between O'Connor's courting parents that infuse her story with lively passion.