Dinners with Ruth by Totenberg
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Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly fifty years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter forย The National Observer,ย Nina was curious about Ruthโs legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated โon the basis of sexโ to be unconstitutional. In a time when women were fired for becoming pregnant, often could not apply for credit cards or get a mortgage in their own names, Ruth patiently explained her argument. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship.
Dinners with Ruthย is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. It is also an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace. At the storyโs heart is one, special relationship: Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During the devastating illness and eventual death of Ninaโs first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruthโs beloved husband died. They shared not only a love of opera, but also of shopping, as they instinctively understood that clothes were armor for women who wanted to be taken seriously in a workplace dominated by men. During Ruthโs last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were โreserved for Ruthโ in Ninaโs house.
Dinners with Ruthย also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Ninaโs life, including her cherished NPR colleagues Cokie Roberts and Linda Wertheimer; her beloved husbands; her friendships with multiple Supreme Court Justices, including Lewis Powell, William Brennan, and Antonin Scalia, and Ninaโs own familyโher father, the legendary violinist Roman Totenberg, and her โbest friends,โ her sisters. Inspiring and revelatory,ย Dinners with Ruthย is a moving story of the joy and true meaning of friendship.
Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter forย The National Observer,ย Nina was curious about Ruthโs legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated โon the basis of sexโ to be unconstitutional. In a time when women were fired for becoming pregnant, often could not apply for credit cards or get a mortgage in their own names, Ruth patiently explained her argument. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship.
Dinners with Ruthย is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. It is also an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace. At the storyโs heart is one, special relationship: Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During the devastating illness and eventual death of Ninaโs first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruthโs beloved husband died. They shared not only a love of opera, but also of shopping, as they instinctively understood that clothes were armor for women who wanted to be taken seriously in a workplace dominated by men. During Ruthโs last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were โreserved for Ruthโ in Ninaโs house.
Dinners with Ruthย also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Ninaโs life, including her cherished NPR colleagues Cokie Roberts and Linda Wertheimer; her beloved husbands; her friendships with multiple Supreme Court Justices, including Lewis Powell, William Brennan, and Antonin Scalia, and Ninaโs own familyโher father, the legendary violinist Roman Totenberg, and her โbest friends,โ her sisters. Inspiring and revelatory,ย Dinners with Ruthย is a moving story of the joy and true meaning of friendship.