If you want to encounter Justice Antonin Scalia’s great legal mind in action, from broad questions about legal interpretation to specific disputes over constitutional provisions, I have just the book for you: The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law, co-edited by Sixth Circuit judge Jeffrey S. Sutton and me.

Here’s the opening of Justice Elena Kagan’s beautiful foreword to the volume:

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In the six years Nino and I served together on the Supreme Court, I held to an unwavering rule. When Nino circulated a new opin­ion, I would put aside whatever else I was doing to read it. Whether I expected to agree or to disagree, I wanted to know immediately—not in a day or in an hour but right now—what Nino had to say. I wanted to dive into his inimitable writing style. To marvel at the power of his mind. And most important, to take the measure of his ideas.

I envy the reader who has picked up this book, as I once picked up those opinions, not knowing what he or she will find.

The Essential Scalia will be released on September 15—just three weeks from tomorrow—and is available for pre-order now. I’ve just received today an early copy from our publisher and am pleased that the book’s outstanding contents are so handsomely packaged.

As regular Bench Memos readers might have in mind, The Essential Scalia is the third volume of Justice Scalia’s work that I’ve had the privilege of helping to produce. The first two, which I co-edited with Christopher J. Scalia, are Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived—a New York Times bestseller—and On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (which I wrote about here). All three volumes are published by Crown Forum, an imprint of Penguin Random House.