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Book Picks from a Knowledgeable Source

In a continuing series on notable people and what they're reading, Weekend Edition Sunday spoke with Gigi Sohn. She's the president of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group for digital and intellectual property rights, based in Washington. Here's a list of what Sohn is reading and recommending this summer.

Against All Enemies, by Richard Clarke

"From what I've been hearing from other people who've read the book there's just so much information that you don't know. This book seems to me to have something new and different in it and something I can learn from."

The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx

Proulx tells the story of a grieving widower named Quoyle who relocates to Newfoundland and writes about the shipping industry for a local paper. "There's no great adventure. I'm not a big bang-up adventure person. But it's about how Coyle meets somebody new and starts a new life for himself in a place that's completely foreign to him."

The Road from Coorain, by Jill Ker Conway

A coming-of-age memoir by Australian writer Conway. "She and her family became rich and poor tending to sheep. When they had rain, the sheep would have great wool and they'd be loaded, but most of the time there was horrible, horrible drought. She basically became a woman in the outer, outer, outer Outback.

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee

David Lurie is a divorced college professor in Cape Town who loses his job -- and the respect of his friends and colleagues -- after having an affair with a student. Lurie retreats to South Africa's Eastern Cape to live with his 20-something daughter, who he barely knows.

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

The novel follows the lifelong friendship between two men and their London families: Samad, a Bengali Muslim who's torn between religious tradition and secular urban living, and Archie, the English husband of a Jamaican woman.

Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig

This book takes a closer look at copyright and intellectual property rules and the ways they affect how artists create work, and how that work can and cannot be disseminated.

The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson

Johnson uses declassified documents and interviews with former civil servants to examine the Cold War persecution of gays and lesbians working in the federal government.

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