Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest

A nostalgic cowboy-romance in non-fiction form. This is the memoir of a supreme court justice, not about her life, but about her birthplace and her father. Think if Arya Stark wrote a book about Winterfell, but Americanized completely.

Sandra Day O'Connor and her brother write a book that spends few words on politics, however history of American law is in there regardless. At times not so subtle, this book chronicles the lives of those who lived on The Lazy B ranch, and the changing world distantly around them. If you look you can see America evolve in the background, legally, infrastructurally, and ecologically.

Politics are downplayed to a minimal. Nothing partisan or truly controversial. It is simply inter-mountain ranching of the show more twentieth century laid bare for a reader to observe. show less

Heard Sandra Day O'Conner discuss this biographical book of her childhood at the Lazy B Ranch (Arizona/New Mexico border) at a forum sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of California. I became very intrigued by the subject matter and wanted to know more. It is an easy read, about a way of life that was foreign to me, but highly interesting. She does a commendable job of making the barren, dry plains of the south west come alive. Her family's ranchland was vast - if comparing, it was equivalent to 1/5 of all the land of Rhode Island. Her descriptions of the tasks, the responsibility of always ensuring that the cattle have water and grass to survive, and her dad's self reliance in fixing and building everything himself are truly show more remarkable. What stood out is how incredibly hard everyone worked, and under such harsh and sparse conditions. The climate, the isolation, the lack of amenities in and outside the home, make it seem like a way of life that is truly gone. Yet, her love for the land, the animals, her family, the ranch and the employees make for a very enjoyable read. The fact that she became the first woman on the United States Supreme Court makes her childhood and way of life all the more remarkable. show less

LAZY B, by Sandra Day O'Connor and H. Alan Day.

An informative account of the early life and family of Supreme Court Justice O'Connor, LAZY B gives a fairly detailed account of what a family ranch was all about from the 1930s (Day-O'Connor was born in 1930)up into the 1980s, when both her parents died. Not long after that, the Day family ranch was sold.

While O'Connor's story was interesting enough, its telling remained rather flat and humorless and never really engaged me, and I found myself skimming over many of the short anecdotal sections which make up the book. Sandra was the oldest of three children and there was a nine-year gap between her and her two siblings, Ann and Alan. She was sent away to school in El Paso and so spent less show more time on the ranch than did her siblings, especially her brother, who took over the day to day operations of the ranch as her father became older. I suspect many of the memories laid down here came not from Sandra but from her brother Alan, who is credited as co-author, even though the book is presented in first person. So, while the book is well-written enough, it has a ghost-written feel to it, which made it less engagaging. I would recommend it mostly for its historical importance, i.e. this is how one of our Supreme Court Justices grew up, and this is what ranch life in the desert Southwest was lke from the Depression years through the end of the twentieth century. show less

4314. Lazy B Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest, by Sandra Day O'Connor and H. Alan Day (read 18 May 2007) This is not too momentous a book, but it has a certain charm and some of its thoughts resonate poignantly. You may find out more than you want to know about some of the men who worked on the ranch where the authors grew up, but the story told is of considerable interest, and its ending is winsome.

Day, H. Alan (Author)