The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in 100+ Books in 2025

Aug 14, 2011 Dolly rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011, religion-philosophy, science, education-school, nonfiction, other-usa, russia, jewish-israel, military, germany-german

I discovered this book through my local book club. I had never heard of it before, but the librarian who recommended it said that for over 300 pages, this book was a surprisingly fast read and felt more like a novel than a book about science and genetics. And it was true. Peppered with family history, anecdotes and the story of the journey that Rebecca Skloot took to research the material for the book, the tale was very touching and human. Even the scientific and technical information was very r I discovered this book through my local book club. I had never heard of it before, but the librarian who recommended it said that for over 300 pages, this book was a surprisingly fast read and felt more like a novel than a book about science and genetics. And it was true. Peppered with family history, anecdotes and the story of the journey that Rebecca Skloot took to research the material for the book, the tale was very touching and human. Even the scientific and technical information was very readable; I normally collect a list of words that I consider new and look up while reading. The only word I wrote down for this book was pipetting, and even that one I could figure out that it's a verb created from the noun pipette.

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating and even entertaining story. The dialogue is often humorous (perhaps without intending to be), and the scientific background is very informative. I really didn't know anything about the HeLa cells prior to reading this book. I was intrigued enough, too, to check out Ms. Skloot's website (www.rebeccaskloot.com) to see what kind of compensation the family eventually received and I was gratified to see that The Henrietta Lacks Foundation was established and partially funded by the proceeds from this book to "provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefitting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent." I am sure that Deborah Lacks (and indeed, Henrietta as well) would be grateful to know that the "Foundation has already awarded 19 grants, including grants covering tuition and book expenses, health care expenses and emergency needs of multiple members of her immediate family." I am certainly looking forward to my book club discussion this weekend!

August 2013 update: I just heard a report on NPR this week that discussed the fact that the genome map for the HeLa cells was recently published and made available to researchers. You can see details of the interview with Francis Collins, the director of the NIH here. ...more

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Aug 25, 2010 Jgrace rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history-usa, play-book-tag, america-usa, 20th-century, jgrace, non-fiction, judithg, relationships, biography, family-relationships

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
5 stars
Audio version narrated by Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin

I can’t recall any other non-fiction book which held my attention so completely from beginning to end. Initially Rebecca Skloot set out to tell the story of Henrietta Lacks, the poor black woman whose cancerous cells provided the medium for much of current biological knowledge and technical expertise. Over the course of ten years of research, Skloot becomes closely associated ...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Megan rated it it was amazing

Gives a great history of medical ethics and research, brought to life by the story of HeLa cells, the woman from which they were taken, her (very interesting) family and their history as "descendants of HeLa". A great read! ...more

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