Notorious RBG: the life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsberg (b. 1933) was -Columbia University's first female tenured professor; she published the first casebook on sex discrimination; she was the second woman to sit on the nation's highest court; and she was the first Supreme Court justice to officiate at a same-sex wedding. Ginsberg is iconic: she's a Halloween costume for all ages; her Cartoon Network alter ego, Wrath Hover Ginsbot, has been "appointed for life to kick your butt"; she's a recurring character on Saturday Night Live. Her "jabot with scalloped glass beads"-aka her dissent collar-is a feared weapon for justice. Her inspirational success on and off the bench-the diminutive octogenarian still does push-ups-inspired the Tumblr site Notorious R.B.G. (-notoriousrbg.tumblr.com), "a digital tribute" whose moniker nods admiringly to late rapper Notorious B.I.G., invoking both stark contrasts and surprising similarities between the two headliners. Knizhnik and -Carmon have seamlessly transferred digital to paper (fact-checked with RBG!) and going aural proves equally successful-albeit definitively different. While Andi Arndt reads RBG in all her fabulous notoriety, frequent references to downloadable enhanced visual materials (including RBG's annotated doodles!) can be distracting. -VERDICT That said, this work does justice to Notorious RBG. ["The authors successfully situate [Ginsberg's] work within a larger historical context, thereby illustrating her central role in advancing equal rights for all": LJ 11/15/15 starred review of the Dey Street: HarperCollins hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Rejoice! This is the year to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG), affectionately known as the "Notorious RBG." This eponymous—and humorous—book is the third recent publication providing biographical information and paying tribute to Ginsburg's Supreme Court opinions, with special attention to her famous—and influential—dissents. Coauthors Carmon, an MSNBC journalist who has interviewed RBG, and Knizhnik, recent alumna of New York University School of Law and creator of the Notorious R.B.G. Tumblr blog, bring a fresh, appropriately irreverent perspective to scholarship about the justice. In fact, this book is not at all scholarly—and this is a major asset. Rather, taking its chapter headings from the lyrics of late rapper Notorious B.I.G., it provides bare-bones biographical narrative and excerpts from a selection of Ginsburg's seminal opinions, while inserting cartoons, photos, poetry, and even opera lyrics. The brief, cogent excerpts from her court opinions are annotated in plain language by prominent legal academics. Moreover, the authors successfully situate RBG's work within a larger historical context, thereby illustrating her central role in advancing equal rights for all. VERDICT Perfect for general readers and academics who are fans of Scott Dodson's The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [See "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 9/1/15, p. 32.]—Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown