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Conversations with Rbg: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law by Jeffrey Rosen
wendy327's review against another edition
3.0
I received a free copy from Henry Holt and Co. through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Jeffrey Rosen's interviews with Ruth Bader Ginsburg are captured in Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law and provide a sense of who Ginsburg is both inside and outside of the court. Considering that Rosen and Ginsburg have known each other since 1991, their friendship and deep respect come through in the text. Organized by theme, the reader gets a sense of how Ginsburg feels about various social issues that have reached the court circuits in the past and present.
I enjoyed Rosen's chapter introductions and felt that they helped contextualize the interviews. The description of the cases mentioned by Ginsburg was also helpful since I was not familiar with some of them. As a whole, the book felt like a great introductory primer told in Ginsburg's own words, covering the work that she has done throughout her judicial career.
However, there's repetition between chapters since some of the same cases cover adjacent themes. Additionally, if you're familiar with Ginsburg this doesn't really introduce anything shocking or revolutionary.
Overall, I did enjoy this book, but just wished for more.
Jeffrey Rosen's interviews with Ruth Bader Ginsburg are captured in Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law and provide a sense of who Ginsburg is both inside and outside of the court. Considering that Rosen and Ginsburg have known each other since 1991, their friendship and deep respect come through in the text. Organized by theme, the reader gets a sense of how Ginsburg feels about various social issues that have reached the court circuits in the past and present.
I enjoyed Rosen's chapter introductions and felt that they helped contextualize the interviews. The description of the cases mentioned by Ginsburg was also helpful since I was not familiar with some of them. As a whole, the book felt like a great introductory primer told in Ginsburg's own words, covering the work that she has done throughout her judicial career.
However, there's repetition between chapters since some of the same cases cover adjacent themes. Additionally, if you're familiar with Ginsburg this doesn't really introduce anything shocking or revolutionary.
Overall, I did enjoy this book, but just wished for more.
mariyamak's review
3.0
RBG is great, and the interviews and stories are interesting. I found the prefaces to the chapters to be a bit overly detailed so that the interview segments repeated facts already in the chapter intro. Thos parts could have been shorter or split to sandwich the interview segments.
farzi_q_pickle's review
4.0
Good intro book… agree with comments about it being repetitive at times but it didn’t bother me as much because I didn’t know a lot of the information. I thought the author successfully made a topic really readable when it could have been really dry. It was interesting to see him capture the humanity of RBG. I’ll probably try to read The Notorious RBG next to get more of a sense of chronology and more about important cases that were only covered a little here.
kaulyjo's review
5.0
I can’t write a terribly insightful review. All I can say is that hearing RBG “speak” now that she’s gone is incredibly powerful, particularly as she speaks of feminism and her “skeptically hopeful” feelings that the Court will not swing too far too the right in modern times. (We can only hope she’s right.)
If I had any quibble with the book it is that each chapter includes first an introductory narrative about the conversation pieces to follow. The narrative too often lifts almost verbatim from the conversation so there appears to be some redundancy, but I appreciate the explicative elements of the narrative because it’s been far too long since I took a ConLaw class.
If I had any quibble with the book it is that each chapter includes first an introductory narrative about the conversation pieces to follow. The narrative too often lifts almost verbatim from the conversation so there appears to be some redundancy, but I appreciate the explicative elements of the narrative because it’s been far too long since I took a ConLaw class.
alisarae's review
I learned a lot by listening to this book (the audio actors are great btw). The author, Jeffrey Rosen, has had a long friendship and working relationship with RBG. He gathered her published writings, speeches, interviews, etc, and edited them into "conversations" around certain topics: Roe v Wade, #MeToo, her favorite decisions, working relationships among the justices, to name a few. RBG edited and approved the final manuscript. The result is an educational yet approachable "chat" with America's most notorious judge.
Well, maybe Judge Judy holds that title.
Well, maybe Judge Judy holds that title.
lynnslibrary's review
informative
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
3.0
This book didn't really live up to my expectations. I love RBG, but the layout was messy and kind of weird. It seemed very repetitive with the questions. I don't think I will be reading the aftermath