Few journalists who write about the Supreme Court are more respected than NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg. In her forthcoming book, Dinners With Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships (Simon & Schuster, Sept. 13), she discusses her friendship with the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The author answered our questions via email.

In 2020, we lost a legendary figure with the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. What do you remember most about your interactions with her?

She was at once traditional and radical, warm and cool, and, above all, an amazing friend. She was traditional in her approach and her dedication to her work but radical in her willingness to consider almost any idea. She was a devoted wife and mother, but she managed to marry a man who promoted her more than himself—and did all the cooking, in part out of self-preservation (Ruth had many strengths, but cooking wasn’t one of them). I interviewed her so many times that I lost count, and while these performative interviews, of necessity, had a great deal of repetition, there always seemed to be something new I learned. Ruth was not from a confessional generation, and she was not easy to really know. But once you were her friend, her attention to that friendship was very special.

Most importantly, our friendship of almost 50 years began when we were both very young and not well known (especially me). As we each grew in our professional lives, I never imagined that I would be covering her on a daily basis. When that happened, we tried, and succeeded, I think, in keeping each to our own lanes. So much so that just hours after undergoing surgery for lung cancer, Ruth called me from the ICU to explain that she had forbidden my doctor-husband to tell me in advance about what was going on, because she didn’t want to do anything that would force me to choose between my friendship for her and my professional obligation to report the news.

The Supreme Court is on everyone’s mind right now. As one of the premier SCOTUS correspondents, what would you say is the biggest misconception about the court?

In any other year, I could have easily answered this question, but the court has taken such a dramatic and pronounced turn to the right that it is very difficult to say where this institution is going and what will happen to it in the long run.

Were you a big reader as a kid? Are there any formative books you remember from your youth or any adults who influenced you as a reader or writer?

The most formative books I read as a kid were probably the Nancy Drew books, which I devoured. They were books that made me feel that women could do anything a man could. Besides which, Nancy had a car and a cute boyfriend, both of which I wanted, too. As I think about the books that had a formative influence in my childhood, they all were about women, or girls, and centered on the idea that we could be powerful personalities and fight for equality. So, in addition to Nancy Drew, there was Little Women, Jane Eyre, and Pride and Prejudice, and my mom read me Charlotte’s Web. There was also a very small string of women’s biographies in the school library on figures such as Madame [Marie] Curie and Dolly Madison—the few that I found among the very long string of biographies about men. And of course, there was Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960, which I read in my teens. It opened my eyes to the profession I really wanted to join—journalism—a place where I could be a witness to history.

Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor.