My Own Words

Sadly, I really wasn't very impressed with this book. I'm a huge RBG fan, so I was really looking forward to it. But two things really made it disappointing, and both of them really come back to the poor choice of compiling a bunch of her speeches for the book. The first issue is that, no offense to her, but RBG's great strength isn't public speeches. They are not exactly rousing oratory. Pretty dry, even for a guy like me who prefers dry nonfiction. And she has a way of dwelling on the exposition in her speeches, giving it far more time than it really needs. The second problem is that so much of this material has so much overlap in it. Some of the speeches are from the same years, and/or include recaps of the same cases & legal issues. It would have made sense to cut a lot of that. At the same time, I know from other biographies of her that there is a lot of good, interesting material completely missing from this book. The obvious reason is that she doesn't give public speeches that dwell on her own life. Understandable in speeches, but it leaves gaping holes in the book.

All in all, if you're a completist I would say check this out, except that you probably will already have read/heard/seen these speeches elsewhere. So even then, I just can't really recommend it.

Good book with somewhat clumsy organization and perhaps unclear topic (is it Ginsberg the person or Ginsberg the justice)? I think the later made more sense for this book, given the book adheres primarily to the authors own words and the author mainly wrote about legal topics, not biographical ones. More on this below.

Best chapters were mid way thru when Ginsberg explains (a) judicial procedure and (b) her nuanced perspective on judicial restraint as it applies to Roe v Wade in comparison to Brown v Board. Her four bench dissents at the end of the book also great.

Reader is left with a view that Ginsberg views herself as a jurist first a member of the Supreme Court second, and perhaps a person in conversation with future generations third.

Would suggest you just skip to the parts where Ginsberg is doing real work, skip the stuff from her childhood (ultimately not that informative absent other biographical information not provided), husband (relevant but not interesting - a few paragraphs on his role and approach would have been fine - at most one speech would have done the job - certainly two was too many!), and unfortunately the intro and conclusion, which were - in my view - neither satisfying nor insightful.

Last point, related to the first. These are, in a sense, memoirs. The subject is the first listed author and presumably maintained editorial control of the book, which is primarily about her life and major accomplishments. But she didn’t explain that or what exactly her role was vis the other two authors. Instead, the book refers to its primary author only in the third person and casts (largely favorable) judgments on her behavior with a voice that sounds objective, but almost certainly isn’t. It’s awkward and makes it tough as a reader to interpret the claims being made.

The authors should have included a chapter that explained who wrote what, whose edits were final, and why the third person was the right voice. This matters since the book wanders into extended discussions of controversial issues in which the author is involved.

For instance, the “author” asserts - at some length - that the subject is healthy and fit for her office as she entered her mid eighties. The “author” speaks as if these are third person observations by a narrator, but more likely are self interested assertions by the subject herself. The subject would then die in office a few years later and with her final words wish that the sitting president not name her successor, which he did - in part frustrating the subject’s life work.

At that point, this section on how the subject made the decision to continue in office suddenly mattered a great deal. And the book does touch on the subject at some length, but it isn’t entirely clear who is speaking and what their interests are. This is just one striking example of how the book conveys much less because it isn’t entirely clear how it was written

I expect the matter will be clarified by a future biographer, but it should have been clarified at time of publication.

Looking forward to a good book length treatment on her life, ideally by an arms length biographer.

Three stars!

This was more about cases, dissents etc. I wanted to understand the person behind those decisions.

Audio was definitely the way to go on this one for me. It was wonderful being able to hear RBG's voice and gain greater insight into her personality, her brilliance, her career, and a bit of her personal life. She is an outstanding woman to be sure! While the sound quality was lacking in just a few of the recordings, they were still valuable in presenting her thoughts on particular subjects. I admire her ability to cut through complex topics, her congeniality, her great respect for human rights, gender equality, and her steadfast approaches to making positive legal changes in our society. I feel this is more memoir than a biography, but you certainly get to look through a window into her life. Next, I may need to purchase an RBG coloring book!

I love The Honourable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I think she's one of the most brilliant Americans alive today. This collection of speeches is a mess though. For example, one of them is a brief introduction for Gloria Steinem at an event for her, but we learn nothing about either Ginsburg or Steinem for the inclusion of the introduction. There are two speeches that are actually her husband's, and he has the same opening joke in them. There is an entire cut-and-paste of the opera, Scalia/Ginsburg, which was just the worst. This book could have been really great, and it does have some great feminist writing in it, but you'll have to wade through a lot of poorly edited content to get to it.