Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg
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 Ruths 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 storys 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 Ninas first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruths 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 Ruths last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were reserved for Ruth in Ninas house.
Dinners with Ruth also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Ninas 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 Ninas own familyher 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.
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 Ruths 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 storys 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 Ninas first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruths 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 Ruths last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were reserved for Ruth in Ninas house.
Dinners with Ruth also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Ninas 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 Ninas own familyher 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.