1,000 Books From Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Personal Library Are Up for Auction

Books from Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal library are being auctioned off by Bonhams. More than 1,000 of Ginsburg’s books, which were kept at her Washington, D.C. apartment, will be included in the auction.

"It's a map, telling you about the person who put the library together. What were they interested in? What did they read? And you can always see connections, right? One book leads to another book which leads to yet another path of inquiry," Catherine Williamson, a book specialist who runs Bonhams' Fine Books and Manuscripts department, told People.

Ginsburg’s family is connected to the auction house through a family friend and offered up Ginsburg’s library after her 2020 death, according to People.

Some of the books for auction include: "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak, "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe and "S Is for Silence" by Sue Grafton.

The auction, which is online only, will run until Jan. 27.

Williamson said preparing for the auction offered her the opportunity to learn more about the justice.

"I'm not surprised that she liked 19th-century Russian literature, including Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace.' Of course she reads the big, smart novels of the 19th and 20th centuries, right?" Williamson said. "I was surprised to see 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' [by D. H. Lawrence]. I thought that was kind of funny, and J.D. Salinger, too. But they, Martin and Ruth Ginsburg, are in the pocket to have read 'Catcher in the Rye' right when it came out."

Ginsburg’s Harvard Law Review is also up for auction and already as a bid for $5,500.

However, Williamson added that some of the books are a lot cheaper, giving more people the opportunity to nab one.

Related Stories