Lab Girl in Around the Year in 52 Books

Mar 17, 2019 CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-reading-challenge, memoir-bio-autobio, feminist, mental-health

I have been excited to read this book since I got an ARC of it back when it was released. I promptly put it on my TBR shelf and got distracted, as usual. But every time I'd notice it, I'd think, gosh, I really want to read that book. Well, this year I finally read it! Thank you, Knopf, for the advanced readers copy (although honestly I ended up listening to it on audio anyway). and I've got to say, Lab Girl did not disappoint me.
Perhaps this is because I didn't have preconceived notions of what I have been excited to read this book since I got an ARC of it back when it was released. I promptly put it on my TBR shelf and got distracted, as usual. But every time I'd notice it, I'd think, gosh, I really want to read that book. Well, this year I finally read it! Thank you, Knopf, for the advanced readers copy (although honestly I ended up listening to it on audio anyway). and I've got to say, Lab Girl did not disappoint me.
Perhaps this is because I didn't have preconceived notions of what to expect prior to reading the book. I knew it was a memoir by a female scientist. Memoirs are about life, so I wasn't surprised when much of the book was about her life, both professional and private. I was surprised by the content at the beginning of each section, detailing some sort of paleo-botanical concept or facts. That was a very nice surprise. I found those sections utterly fascinating and easy to understand. (It's like she's been a teacher for 20 years or something.) and then about halfway through the book I realized that the botany sections at least loosely corresponded to the following memoir section (for instance, a section on how trees create and interact with their offspring preceded the section on Hope's pregnancy and the birth of her son. [This is not a spoiler, since she mentions his existence at the very beginning of the book.]). Apparently some reviewers expected more detailed writing on Hope's various studies and experiments and presentations and less personal stories. But frankly she's already published her scholarly work elsewhere, quite a bit of it, apparently, and I'd rather hear about what life was like for a petite, socially awkward female scientist trying to break into the boys' club of paleo-botanical reseach.
This book was really full of surprises. Another surprise was that this story is almost as much the story of Hope's best friend/ employee/ platonic soulmate/ brother-from-another-mother Bill as it was about Hope herself. From the time they met and worked together when Hope was in grad school to the present, Bill and Hope have apparently been inseparable nerds, enduring some rather terrible challenges and privations for the sake of pursuing their reason for being--science and scientific research/ discovery. This was also a good surprise. I didn't expect to hear about Bill so much, but, having heard their story, I don't think it would have been possible for Hope to tell her story without him. And their passion for their scientific research is fascinating and charming and compelling. As a self-identifying nerd, I love to see smart people geek out about the things they love, especially in intellectual matters. and there is so much geeking out in this story. Hope and Bill sound like some of the most weird and awkward nerds I've ever known, but so freaking brilliant and motivated too.
A third surprise was learning about Hope's struggles with mental illness. This was the most detailed personal writing I've read on what it's like to struggle with bipolar disorder, especially the mania aspect of it. It was chilling at times to imagine her struggle, but also illuminating for me, as someone who has had acquaintances with BPD, giving me more perspective on their past behavior. The sections on Hope's struggles during her pregnancy were especially harrowing. I'm glad she survived to be able to write this book and share her story, and I feel like I learned more about bipolar disorder as well as science, and the struggles of women to be taken seriously in scientific research.
The sections about Hope's struggles as a woman in a field that has tried to ignore her and diminish her and refused to take her work seriously were of especially interest to me. I found them to be surprisingly light-handed. For better or for worse, this is no "shrill" or angry manifesto about wrongs done to Hope or how male scientists suck. Just an honest reflection on the additional struggles she's had to face in her field due to her gender, especially given her apparent build and demeanor (I can agree with her experiences of being taken even less seriously as a thin, petite female with a young face and casual wardrobe. It can be really frustrating to be treated like a child far into adulthood by 'paternal' strangers and colleagues. I'm sure it's even more frustrating when a brilliant and highly qualified member of your field).
The book also wields a light touch in discussing environmental concerns and climate change. Obviously Hope is an intelligent, well-educated scientist very well aware of issues relating to climate change, deforestation, etc. But she doesn't hammer away at those topics. She doesn't avoid them either. But when she mentions them it's with a calm, matter-of-fact tone, as additional challenges in her field and concerns for the future. Towards the end of the book she addresses the issue more directly and with more passion, but it is still a very restrained presentation, mostly focused on encouraging her readers to plant trees whenever/ wherever possible, and care for them. That was a wonderful note on which to end, in my opinion, leaving the reader with a practical take-away that utilizes some of the scientific knowledge gained throughout the book, as well as the sense of importance of the subject as addressed in her epilogue. She certainly made me want to plant more trees.
The cover is a very pleasing design that playfully references much of the work Hope does (with soil, tree seeds and seedlings, etc.). And the audio version which I finally listened to is well done. It is read by Hope Lahren herself. She has a pleasant voice, and reads with enthusiasm and passion (OK, sometimes awkwardly too much, in my opinion. But there's no doubt it's heart-felt.). If you have a player that can increase the speed of the recording incrementally, you might find her voice less relaxing (I felt sleepy when listening to the first few chapters, until I adjusted to her soft-spoken, slow speech rhythms.) and also finish the book sooner. Finally, I also appreciated the careful endnote wherein Hope details a bit more about the work she references throughout the book and the criteria for choices she made in phrasing and citing statistics and facts. It seemed very much professional and in character for her to include this.
I usually have some criticisms of any book I read, but overall I found Lab Girl very pleasing and unobjectionable. I will say that while I recognized and enjoyed her many allusions to the Bible and other Christian hymns and writings, I'm not sure that anyone without an extensive Christian background will derive much benefit from them. The book is in no way preachy--it's difficult to tell what Hope's actual religious beliefs, if any, are. She simply writes like someone alluding to works with which she's familiar--in her case, not only classic English literature, but also the Christian Bible, to which she had plenty of exposure in her youth, if not since. But if that's something that will bother you, be warned.
Also, Hope writes from inside her science bubble. Her world has often been just herself and Bill and their research. She does not address issues outside that, which is perfectly reasonable, but her experiences and surroundings don't seem to have been very diverse. She and Bill seem very content inside their white nerdy bubble. I don't think there was any directly objectionable material. There simply was a lack of diversity expressed. That's more difficult to criticize with a memoir, as this is simply a reflection of her life, one which has been subsumed by scientific endeavors most of her life. But don't read this expecting racial or ethnic diversity beyond mentions of Bill's Armenian heritage.
All of this to say, Lab Girl is another excellent book I've read this year, and a memoir I'd highly recommend, for perspectives on science, mental illness, women's experiences, especially in the field of scientific research, friendship and family, and, of course, more science. It is an enjoyable and accessible read that is worth your time. ...more

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Apr 15, 2016 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: science, memoir-and-autobiographical-essays, r2016-in-2016, women-in-science

“Where have you been? It’s seven-fucking-thirty.” Bill’s version of “good morning” has changed very little over the past twenty years.

I really enjoyed this book (even though it wasn't what I expected), and I was simultaneously really annoyed by general factual errors in it (leading to my long rambling list of complaints here), enough so that I can't bring myself to give it more than 3 stars.

I can appreciate what Ms Jahren is trying to do: she's writing a memoir of her life as a woman and bi

“Where have you been? It’s seven-fucking-thirty.” Bill’s version of “good morning” has changed very little over the past twenty years.

I really enjoyed this book (even though it wasn't what I expected), and I was simultaneously really annoyed by general factual errors in it (leading to my long rambling list of complaints here), enough so that I can't bring myself to give it more than 3 stars.

I can appreciate what Ms Jahren is trying to do: she's writing a memoir of her life as a woman and biological scientist, and drawing parallels in the lives of plants. Clever, right? I thought so. I can't speak to the accuracy of the facts about her life, so I just assume she got them right. But I've got questions about the plant facts she lays out for us. I'm not a biologist, I'm just someone who knows a little bit about plants, and I found numerous errors. Did no one fact check this?? It's disappointing. This review will consist of a small amount of praise, many quotes from the book, along with me ranting about why they aren't right. Buckle in.

The tone wasn't what I expected, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd known going in what to expect. The closest I can say is I thought it would be like Amy Stewart, but was more akin to Bill Bryson. But really, Ms Jahren has a voice that's all her own. The key is: irreverent, somewhat self-deprecating, slightly unconventional and very proud of it. Once I re-calibrated, I was perfectly happy with her style.

This is well-written, entertaining, and engaging. It's often brutally honest (really, I winced at parts - it's hard enough to be a woman in a man's field, even harder if you let it all hang out like this!). It's irreverent and self-deprecating. It's weird. Sometimes it's really weird.

Ms Jahren seems to struggle with who her audience is. Sometimes she talks down to the reader too much; the first chapter really annoyed me. I expected a well-written and fascinating personal account of one woman scientist'so adventures in botany. What I seem to have gotten instead is an almost smug account that makes a lot of assumptions about her readers. "You probably have this, but I have that" or "I will explain this in a way that would feel right at home in a Stephanie Plum novel, because I know you won't understand sometimes more detailed" or "I work longer hours than anyone!" Color me annoyed. (I got over it.)

The smugness wouldn't feel so egregious, except ohbytheway, scientists are better wordsmiths than anyone else evuh:

No writer in the world agonizes over words the way a scientist does. Terminology is everything: we identify something by its established name, describe it using the universally agreed-upon terms, study it in a completely individual way, and then write about it using a code that takes years to master. When documenting our work, we “hypothesize” but never “guess”; we “conclude,” not just “decide.” We view the word “significant” to be so vague that it is useless but know that the addition of “highly” can signify half a million dollars of funding.

Maybe a little more agonizing was in order before letting this go to press.

But things get better. We get true gems like:

A seed knows how to wait. ...

A seed is alive while it waits. Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old oak tree that towers over it. Neither the seed nor the old oak is growing; they are both just waiting. Their waiting differs, however, in that the seed is waiting to flourish while the tree is only waiting to die.

and

Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.

and

The leaves of the world comprise countless billion elaborations of a single, simple machine designed for one job only—a job upon which hinges humankind. Leaves make sugar. Plants are the only things in the universe that can make sugar out of nonliving inorganic matter. All the sugar that you have ever eaten was first made within a leaf. Without a constant supply of glucose to your brain, you will die. Period. Under duress, your liver can make glucose out of protein or fat—but that protein or fat was originally constructed from a plant sugar within some other animal. It’s inescapable: at this very moment, within the synapses of your brain, leaves are fueling thoughts of leaves.

Ms Jahren ascribes an intriguing level of sentience to the plants she studies. I don't think that plants are actually aware or thinking, I don't think they are looking at us, and I'm certain that evolution did not involve new ideas and choices, but I do enjoy the imagery.

Probably within just the last ten million years, a plant had a new idea, and instead of spreading its leaf out, it shaped it into a spine, such as those we find today on the cholla cactus. It was this new idea that allowed a new kind of plant to grow preposterously large and live long in a dry place where it was also the only green thing around to eat for miles—an absurdly inconceivable success. One new idea allowed the plant to see a new world and draw sweetness out of a whole new sky.

Later she makes the intriguing observation that plants do move, and perhaps they perceive us as beings moving so quickly that we can't possibly be alive.

A very long quote that gives an example of the irreverence:

... we progressed into the final chamber of the Jungle, where a huge gorilla named King sat in a cement hole not dissimilar to those used to impose solitary confinement upon the prisoners of my own species. King’s three-hundred-pound frame slumped against the tile as he used one foot to listlessly rub a crayon back and forth across a piece of paper. The walls of the room from which we viewed him were plastered with his finished “paintings,” each of which had been executed by King using a similar technique; taken together, they expressed an impressively consistent artistic view.

“At least he’s publishing,” I observed.

We read a plaque that described the heavy crosses that lowland gorillas must bear within their native Africa, which ranged from poaching to disease, yet it was difficult to imagine any corner of the Congo more dismal than the abject constriction within which King had been impounded in Florida. We read a second, rather apologetic plaque describing how King’s overflow art could be purchased in the gift shop and that some of the proceeds were earmarked toward the remodeling and expansion of his enclosure. If King had had a handgun, I was pretty sure that he would have blown his own head off, but seeing that he was armed only with a crayon, he appeared to be making the best of his situation.

She did startle me with this line: "Vines are evergreen, which means that they never take a day off: no long winter vacation like the deciduous trees that they have laboriously scaled." Uh, what? SOME vines are evergreen, sure! But not all of them! Anyone who has ever seen a photo of a picturesque stone building covered with red Virginia creeper knows that some vines certainly do have fall color and then lose their leaves. In other words, vines are deciduous too. Not just Virginia creeper, but also clematis, bittersweet nightshade, trumpet vine, grapevines, and more. Or are they not "true vines" in some botanical sense? I yank bittersweet, Virginia creeper and grapevines off my siding and window screens every year; they look like true vines to me! And they are definitely deciduous.

They are the hardest-working plants on Earth. A vine can grow an entire foot in length on just one sunny day. Within their stems gush the highest rates of water transfer ever measured in a plant. Don’t be fooled by the few red or brown leaves you find on poison ivy in the fall—the plant is not dying; it’s just cheating with different pigments. Vines are evergreen, which means that they never take a day off: no long winter vacation like the deciduous trees that they have laboriously scaled. On top of everything, vines do not flower and bear seed until they reach the open sun above the canopy of the forest, and therefore only the very strongest have ever survived.

This is particularly frustrating for me, because my interest in this book is twofold. One is to read the memoir of a young successful woman scientist, to learn how she got where she is and how she handled any difficulties succeeding as a woman in a male-dominated field. The other is to learn lots of fun botanical tidbits from this successful biologist, because gardening and amateur botany is one of my interests. But if she got that one wrong, can I trust the rest? Are vines really the hardest working plants on Earth? Do they actually have the highest rate of water transfer? And so on ... :-(

For another example, is this true? Does a barrel cactus really withdraw all its roots? Does a rootless barrel cactus continue to grow?

A barrel cactus has folds like an accordion, and deep within these folds are the pores that let air in and water evaporate out. When it becomes very dry, a cactus sheds its roots to prevent the parched soil from sucking all the water back out of it. A cactus can live for four days with no roots and still continue to grow.

Because I know THIS isn't true:

A cactus doesn't live in the desert because it likes the desert; it lives there because the desert hasn’t killed it yet. Any plant that you find growing in the desert will grow a lot better if you take it out of the desert.

Ms Jahren clearly has never tried growing desert plants in hot, humid, moist Georgia (the location of her first job, and what she describes as "a plant's idea of Eden" - sure for azaleas, but not so much for penstemons!). She would rot their roots and find mildew on the leaves, and finally she would find dead little desert plants. She must not be a gardener.

There are more misleading and incorrect lines like this. I will leave them for you to discover.

There are some confusing details left dangling. For example: she brings her dog, Reba, on a field trip, but never mentions what she did with Reba when they toured a monkey zoo. Surely they didn't leave her in a hot car? And dogs aren't generally allowed in zoos .... So, what did she do with Reba for the afternoon? And, after chapters of telling us how she basically works 24/7, with frequent all-nighters, out of the blue she mentions her horse, Jackie. A horse?!?! I don't have time to care for a horse, so how could Jahren manage it??? And then she concludes that chapter by saying she moved from the rural area to an apartment in town. What happened to Jackie??? We never find out.

Her testimony of her love for her husband is beautiful and perfect.

We love each other because we can’t help it. We don’t work at it and we don’t sacrifice for it. It is easy and all the sweeter to me because it is so undeserved. I discover within a second context that when something just won’t work, moving heaven and earth often won’t make it work—and similarly, there are some things that you just can’t screw up. I know that I could live without him: I have my own work, my own mission, and my own money. But I don’t want to. I really don’t want to.

(Equally beautiful testimony of her long friendship with her lab manager, Bill. I'll let you discover it yourself when you read the book.)

The birth scene was intense. Whoa. Those days are well behind me now, and after reading that I sure am glad. I'm not sure if this scene will be more difficult for those women who have been through it already, or for those women who haven't gotten there yet. At any rate, I advise extreme caution for any pregnant women in the third trimester, it might hit too close to home. (Don't worry, everything is okay in the end.)

This line at the end reminds me of my younger daughter

I’m good at science because I’m not good at listening.

Perhaps my daughter, too, will grow up to become a scientist. I would be proud.

And this line pretty much mirrors my own twenty years experience in engineering:

I have been told that I can’t do what I want to do because I am a woman, and I have been told that I have only been allowed to do what I have done because I am a woman.

Yep.

This book boasts the Best Last Line Ever:

Like anyone else who harbors precious secrets wrought from years of searching, I have longed for someone to tell.

...more

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Jul 02, 2016 Samantha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: around-the-year-in-52-books

This mix of memoir and science lesson was a wonderful read. Ms. Jahren's tale of her growth as a scientist, professor and friend was well written and entertaining. Her friendship with her lab partner Bill and the adventures they had together (in particular the side trip to Monkey Jungle) were the most fun for me to read. I was also amazed by how interesting the science was and appreciated that I had the opportunity to learn a few new things about plants and trees. ...more

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Jan 09, 2018 Jana rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club, science, x2018-reading-challenge

It was really interesting to read this book from the perspective of a female contemporary who chose not to continue down the science path past graduate school. The path not taken.

I enjoyed going back and forth between stories from her life and information specific to plants (that seems to parallel her life).

Read for Week 10. An author's debut book. ...more

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