Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

by Nina Totenberg
Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

by Nina Totenberg

eBook

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Overview

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 for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth’s legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated “on the basis of sex” 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 Ruth 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 story’s 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 Nina’s first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruth’s 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 Ruth’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Nina’s house.

Dinners with Ruth also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Nina’s 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 Nina’s own family—her father, the legendary violinist Roman Totenberg, and her “best friends,” her sisters. Inspiring and revelatory, Dinners with Ruth is a moving story of the joy and true meaning of friendship.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781982188108
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 09/13/2022
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 320
Sales rank: 14,946
File size: 94 MB
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About the Author

Nina Totenberg is NPR’s award-winning legal affairs correspondent. She appears on NPR’s critically acclaimed news magazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition, and on NPR podcasts, including The NPR Politics Podcast and its series, The Docket. Totenberg’s Supreme Court and legal coverage has won her every major journalism award in broadcasting. Recognized seven times by the American Bar Association for continued excellence in legal reporting, she has received more than two dozen honorary degrees. A frequent TV contributor, she writes for major newspapers, magazines, and law reviews.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Bouillabaisse for Ruth 9

1 The First Stirrings of Friendship 17

2 Making Friends and a Few Enemies 77

3 Unexpected Friends 93

4 Friends and Love 108

5 Friends in Need 128

6 Friends of the Court 157

7 Friends and Confidences 173

8 Supreme Friends 195

9 Male Friends 232

10 Friends in Joy 253

11 Nourishing Friendships 281

12 Friendship and Hardships 298

13 Fame and Friendship 319

14 Friendship Is a Choice 343

15 Losing Friends 360

16 Finding My Father's Long-Lost Friend 381

17 Farewell to My Friend 399

Epilogue 419

Notes 433

Acknowledgments 449

Photo Credits 453

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