First: Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas: book review

First: Sandra Day O’Connor (2019) is the biography of America’s first female Supreme Court justice. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she served on the Court from 1981-2006, twelve years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined her on the bench in 1993.

The biography begins on a cattle ranch in Arizona, where Sandra Day grew up, and in El Paso, where she attended school and lived with her maternal grandmother. Her sister Ann was born when Sandra was eight years old, and brother Alan arrived two years later. Sandra went to law school when someone suggested that she needed to handle her father’s business.

When she graduated in law in 1952 and married John O’Connor, no firm was hiring women lawyers. When she moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1957 ‘you could fit all the women lawyers in Phoenix around a table.’ This biography outlines her career progression, her cases, and her character.

It also tells of her cancer diagnosis at the age of 58, and her husband’s Alzheimer’s. It also mentions her retirement years, and the establishment of the iCivics public school education curriculum.

This is an interesting biography told with insight and a touch of humour.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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