From the Bookshelf of Science Book Chat…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
What Members Thought
My first thoughts, this book is in a word, odd. It is a memoir written by a bipolar paleobiologist and her Asperger’s like, one-handed best friend/lab assistant. They stumble through the US and Europe trying to do good science.
The book is about three things. 1. Science: we learn about the scientific method, how a mass spectrometer works, and that trees have memory (all of which was much more interesting than I would have thought). 2. Love and Family: in all its permutations, good/bad, expressed ...more
The book is about three things. 1. Science: we learn about the scientific method, how a mass spectrometer works, and that trees have memory (all of which was much more interesting than I would have thought). 2. Love and Family: in all its permutations, good/bad, expressed ...more
I have pretty mixed feelings about this one.
The book is an entertaining read, and counter to most opinions that I'm seeing online, I wish this book was mostly the plant chapters and less of the memoir (really, really liked the plant chapters). The memoir parts made me angry. Having gone through grad school, it was pretty distressing to read the author's opinions of what a scientist is/should be, and to read about how Jahren treated some of her students. The whole making students label hundreds o ...more
The book is an entertaining read, and counter to most opinions that I'm seeing online, I wish this book was mostly the plant chapters and less of the memoir (really, really liked the plant chapters). The memoir parts made me angry. Having gone through grad school, it was pretty distressing to read the author's opinions of what a scientist is/should be, and to read about how Jahren treated some of her students. The whole making students label hundreds o ...more
Nov 11, 2016
Arctic
marked it as to-read
Jan 03, 2017
Leigh
marked it as to-read
Jan 25, 2017
Jence
marked it as to-read
Apr 07, 2017
Kathryn
marked it as to-read
Jun 18, 2017
Åsa
marked it as to-read
Jan 06, 2018
Anna
added it
Jun 02, 2019
Manolis Politis
marked it as to-read
