FIRST: SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

You know an audiobook is good when you have to choose between listening and sleeping during an overnight transoceanic airplane flight. Kirsten Potter narrates this biography of America’s first female Supreme Court justice with enthusiasm and clarity. She adjusts her tone to suit the subject matter, ranging from warmly personal in family sections to evenhandedly serious in discussions of legal cases. The author includes several interesting tidbits about O’Connor’s life, and Potter expresses a note of surprise about some of them. There are few extended quotations, so Potter doesn’t try to impersonate the speakers, but she makes even partial quotes distinct from the author’s text. R.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2019 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2019]