The word "law" only appears once on the NYT list of "100 Notable Books of 2011."

Maybe the New York Times is missing some great law books, but this is some kind of read on something that ought to matter to legal academics and other law folk.

What's the one book? It's "Rights Gone Wrong/How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality," by Richard Thompson Ford. Here's the NYT review of it by Jeffrey Rosen:

In “Rights Gone Wrong,” Richard Thompson Ford, a law professor at Stanford, argues that both the progressive left and the colorblind right are guilty of the same error: defining discrimination too abstractly and condemning it too categorically, with similarly perverse results....

Ford does not offer an equivocal, cautious, middle-of-the-road critique of civil rights law....

Ford ends his stimulating polemic by arguing for a more “nuanced” approach to civil rights. He calls for the return of thoughtful, pragmatic judges who will take the time to distinguish justified from unjustified acts of discrimination, rejecting selfish or perverse claims of “rights gone wrong” while protecting people from truly invidious indignities.

Noted.