Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a woman who has not only dedicated herself to wielding the law for the benefit of gender equality but whose image as a principled, pragmatic, progressive feminist lawmaker is an important touchstone in our society today. In this book, Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik provide what I'd describe as a light biography of RBG, with chapters covering key formative moments, relationships with the other SCOTUS justices, her workout routine, her wardrobe choices, and opinions on some of her most meaningful court decisions. The key takeaway, reinforced at several points, seems to be around RBG's approach to making change: pick your battles, work towards your big goal incrementally, keep it civil and respectful.

I appreciated the way this book helped me better understand the way SCOTUS works, and the way RBG has worked. It provides important food for thought at a time when so much seems at stake and we're having important debates about how best to fight back.

But I wanted the book to be both deeper and more nuanced. As much as I admire RBG, the book almost made it feel like she never made a mistake or a questionable judicial decision in her life, but was always playing a responsible long game for equality. As a Canadian I'm not intimately familiar with every opinion Ginsburg has written but recently the podcast This Land informed me of Ginsburg's opinion in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation. Reading more about it, I'm convinced that we can't ignore this case in our evaluation of RBG's judicial legacy. It's possible to make a case that her rulings on Indian Law have improved or at least grown more nuanced over time . Either way, RBG deserves the praise for her work on same-sex marriage, gender equality and rights for people of colour but the impacts of her decisions on Native Americans at least deserved a mention.