Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg

 

"A Jewish teaching says those who die just before the Jewish new year are the ones God has held back until the last moment because they were needed most and were the most righteous. And so it was that #RBG died as the sun was setting last night marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah."

           -Nina Totenberg, after the death of her dear friend, Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Not having been an NPR listener, I hadn't heard of Nina Totenberg. This book, subtitled A Memoir on the Power of Friendships, highlights her friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsberg and others in high places. I selected the book because of my great admiration for the "notorious RBG" as Justice Ginsberg came to be affectionately called.

Nina and Ruth shared a near 50-year friendship, helping each other through some extremely difficult times in their lives, including the deaths of each of their husbands and Ruth's own monumental battles with cancer.

I learned so much about RBG's early career and her efforts to break the glass ceiling. I was so impressed with her devoted husband Marty who in many ways was the "wind beneath her wings." It was so interesting to know about other Supreme Court Justices who had only been names in the news, like Justice Scalia---highly respected but seemingly the life of any party, as well.

Totenberg also writes of her friendship with Cokie Roberts, a coworker at NPR. Hers was a name I was familiar with having read her nonfiction Founding Mothers a few years ago.

I am glad I read Dinners with Ruth; it was both educational and entertaining. My rating is 4.