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Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

Start date: June 15, 2020

Finish date: August 1, 2020

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Barb

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Jun 12, 2020 Katy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: memoir, environment, science

I really liked this. It is the story of a young woman determined to become a scientist and the difficult obstacles she had to overcome order to succeed. Growing up in rural Minnesota, she spent much of her childhood in the lab where her father taught at a small college learning science from the inside. Although I lack a science background, I was fascinated by her intense curiosity and what I learned about plant life from the experiments she describes. There is also the human element - the bond t ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Sylvia Tedesco rated it it was amazing

This is a wonderful book. I groaned when the Book Club chose it thinking it was one of those books that are "good for you." I almost immediately fell in love with her humor, love, descriptive writing ability.....a joy all the way through. I keep looking up things. Today I want to go back and re-read about that board she and Bill found with the old lab mass spectrometer. It had multiple screws, bolts, etc. on it with their measurements....so a researcher could immediately identify any loose items ...more

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Jul 29, 2020 Jane rated it really liked it

Shelves: family-story, memoir, environmental-issues, geographical, natural-world, science

I almost abandoned this book. Sections of the early narrative about her childhood bored me, and four pages of disinfecting her lab tables and various tools and containers had me needing another pill. Then several sections about filling sterile plastic bags with meds...enough. (I am laid up with a pelvic and sacral fracture). Maybe it's me, not the book. The thing is, now I'm hooked. At times the writing is so intriguing. I will move on.

Finished by Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. I ended up loving it, I almost abandoned this book. Sections of the early narrative about her childhood bored me, and four pages of disinfecting her lab tables and various tools and containers had me needing another pill. Then several sections about filling sterile plastic bags with meds...enough. (I am laid up with a pelvic and sacral fracture). Maybe it's me, not the book. The thing is, now I'm hooked. At times the writing is so intriguing. I will move on.

Finished by Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. I ended up loving it, although there were a few chapters in the beginning that were boring. I skimmed one or two chapters and then really loved it. It's an odd little amalgam of her lab work, and gorgeous short chapters on the intricacies of trees, seeds, grasses, flowers. She has a family, and there are a few chapters on that, but it's her bumbly much-loved lab partner who shares most of the book and, it seems, her life. I ended up loving the book's idiosyncrasies.

I think I am comparing this book about trees to The Overstory, and it just can't compete. This is an entirely different beast of a book. Much more accessible. I'll read on and see.

This is the kind of scientific/poetic passage that captured me: "Without a constant supply of glucose t 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." Here's a lovely thought: "I looked forward to the analysis with the same happy anticipation one brings to a baseball game: anything might happen but it will probably take a long time."

The whole summer in Colorado was a data-gathering bust, but it taught me the most important thing I know about science: that experiments are not about getting the world to do what you want it to do." p.75 And p.76 is filled with brilliance. (What if I told people I was studying what it's like to be a plant? ...more

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Oct 14, 2017 Lisa rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, audio, science

I am not a scientist, but learning about science always interests me. I also love a good memoir. This book is part scientific log (watching plants and trees grow, the use and importance of mass spectrometers as well as random science trivia) and part personal memoir of a woman who grew up loving science, making her life’s work in a field not easily entered by a woman of her time. She is damaged in many ways but she writes about her work and her personal challenges with an engaging wit. The book ...more

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