Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hardcover – October 27, 2015

“It was beyond my wildest imagination that I would one day become the ‘Notorious RBG.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2019She was a fierce dissenter with a serious collar game. A legendary, self-described “flaming feminist litigator” who made the world more equal. And an intergenerational icon affectionately known as the Notorious RBG. As the nation mourns the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, discover the story of a remarkable woman and learn how to carry on her legacy.This runaway bestseller, brought to you by the attorney founder of the Notorious RBG Tumblr and an award-winning feminist journalist, is more than just a love letter. It draws on intimate access to Ginsburg’s family members, close friends, colleagues, and clerks, as well as an interview with the Justice herself. An original hybrid of reported narrative, annotated dissents, rare archival photos and documents, and illustrations, the book tells a never-before-told story of an unusual and transformative woman who transcended divides and changed the world forever.My Thoughts:As I buried myself in Notorious RBG, I was drawn into the life of a legendary woman, from childhood to adulthood, with many anecdotes and images featuring her legal career. Her time on the Supreme Court was a pinnacle of achievement and summed up everything that led her there.Before reading this book, I had also read articles and saw videos that were a part of her history.To say that RBG was someone to applaud and someone who inspired others would be only part of the story. In addition to everything else, she was a down to earth individual who is missed. Nobody else can take her place.I consider myself to be someone who will never be the same after learning more about her.I recommend anything and everything written and shown about her, and award 5 stars to this book.***

The main point I want to get across to potential readers of this book is that it is a highly substantive, serious and detailed look at the life and career of Justice Ginsburg. It may appear on first viewing--given the editorial cartoons, extensive photos, and caricatures--to be some manner of "coffee table" book novelity. But there is much meat on the bones here for anyone interested in Justice Ginsburg.In part, the book is biographical, facilitated by some innovative timeline and other charts. Many photos, some obviously I would say, drawn from RBG's own files, enhance the presentation. By chapter 4, the authors are moving into substantive legal issues. This section is innovative because of several techniques of the authors. First, they focus on some key Ginsburg cases as counsel by examining the text of her briefs through annotating the language in particular sections and carefully dissecting why it is there. Reed v. Reed is a prime example of this technique. Secondly, the important body of work that RBG developed during her years supervising and as counsel for the ACLU's Women's Rights Project are encapsulated in a double page chart (pp. 74-5), which at once underlines the significance of her efforts as well as organizing by category the cases in a concise but meaningful chart design. Her legal career at Rutgers and Columbia is also covered.By chapter 5, the focus is her judicial career on both the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (thanks to Carter) and eventually the Supreme Court via a Clinton nomination. Particularly effective is the discussion of the VMI case, one of Ginsburg's great victories as a Justice. Chapter 6 focuses upon her late husband Martin Ginsburg, somewhat colorful for a tax lawyer, and an important key to understanding Ginsburg the person and what factors have shaped her life.I found the most interesting chapter (7) to be on her working on the Supreme Court. Her relations with Sandra Day O'Connor, Rehnquist, and of course Scalia are explored. The important topic of writing opinions is also covered, as are her relationships with clerks and how her chambers operates--or as I like to say, "how the sausages are made."Chapter 8 covers the critical role she has played as a dissenter in a majority conservative court. Her revival of oral dissents on occasion is important, as is her philosophy of dissenting. Several of her important dissents, including in the recent Voting Rights Act case, are subjected to annotative analysis to emphasize the points supporting her minority view. Another two page chart (pp. 148-9) focusing upon her dissents covers the ground expeditiously but comprehensively in a most cogent format. Chapter 9 deals with the personal side of the Justice, including her love of opera and life style.Of current critical importance is the final chapter on her refusal to step aside so a younger liberal judge can be appointed to replace her before the 2016 election. She has come under a great deal of misinformed pressure to take such a step, to which fortunately this incomparable fighter has refused to yield. However, obviously, time is time and how long this 80 plus year old dynamo will continue her service is problematic--one does note that several brushes with cancer have not deterred her determination to serve out her term.The book concludes with a number of appendices on various interesting topics. There are several effective traditional bios of the Justice, Linda Hirshman's recent joint RBG and O'Connor bio being a prime example, and the RGB lilterature continues to grow in recognition of her many contributions. This book is much more light-hearted, innovative, lively, and just fun to read--but the core of a solid study of RGB is there. One cannot conclude reading this book without going away with a strong sense of RBG as a person. An invaluable addition to the growing literature on this most interesting and significant of Supreme Court justices.

The interesting thing about this playful biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the dissonance with its subject: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not at all the militantly liberal celebrity memes (and her opponents) make her out to be. Beneath her to-the-point perfectionist exterior lives a fiery long-term planner. She trades flashy rhetoric for concrete, clear steps to affect positive changes for feminism, and consequently has helped make the country a better place to work and live in.The inclusion of Ginsburg's legal opinions is a really nice touch that helps cement the narratives surrounding her famous cases. However, my favorite parts were the more personal, tender glimpses at what made up RBG. Her wisecracking husband Marty, her shared-love of opera with Scalia, her workout routine, her relationship with her children, the anecdote about asking for tickets for the play Cock. I would have loved even a little more of this background color; what sort of person takes on systematic sexism and racism for decades?On the negative side, the shtick of the book didn't work for me. Some of the side remarks were a little too eye-rolling for me, like unironically saying "Burn." It veers sometimes too closely to the sort of hero worship that I think Ginsburg would be hesitant to encourage; the authors don't seem sure whether they want to deconstruct the pop culture icon or embrace whole-hog Ginsburg's 'notoriety.'RBG is a tremendous figure and the sort of human being we should all aspire to be. As silly as some of the memes around her are, it is a credit to her steady, solid lifetime of work that she has earned her permanent place in the American consciousness. Even if the book I think isn't quite as laser-focused as its subject, it's a well-told story of someone doing what's right in a time of divisiveness and backwards thinking.