Lab Girl Book Club
“I will never stop being ravenously hungry for science, no matter how well it feeds me,” writes Hope Jahren, a paleobiologist, winner of three Fulbright Awards, a professor at the University of Hawaii and now author of a marvelous memoir, Lab Girl. What’s it like being a female research scientist? You’ll have no better tour guide than Jahren, who is witty, thoughtful, informative and who writes exceedingly well.
An Interview with Hope Jahren:Back in the 60’s there was that expression that “the personal is political.” Today, it’s also possible to say that the personal. In “Lab Girl,” geochemist Hope Jahren combines beautiful writing and a comprehensive scientific background to craft a beautiful memoir of a life spent figuring things out.
Jahren, whose work focuses on plant life, grew up playing beneath the chemical benches in her father’s community college lab in Minnesota, knowing that someday she would have her own lab. Today she does (her third), calling it her refuge, her asylum and “a place to go on sacred days, as is a church.”
Her lab partner, Bill, is her loyal sidekick, whom she adores like a fraternal twin. Their adventures, chronicled here in high style, include overturning a van during a snowstorm, hanging off the sides of cliffs in Northern Alaska and tromping through Irish highlands in search of moss. Arduino llc (www.arduino.cc) driver download for windows 10.
Jahren also writes about the difficulty of being a female scientist, sometimes forced to work with “pasty middle-aged men who regarded me as they would a mangy stray that had slipped in through an open basement window.” She relates the ongoing task of securing funding—in their early days as a team, Bill lived in his car when he couldn’t afford his own place.
Jahren shares her struggles with bipolar disorder (although this isn’t the focus of the book), and the joy of finally meeting the man she would marry and becoming a mother. Along the way, she includes elegant short chapters about the natural world, artfully explaining the way in which various species’ struggle for survival mirrors her own.
Lab Girl presents an edifying and entertaining look into the world of a serious research scientist.
This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
Jahren, Hope. Lab Girl. United States and Canada: Alfred A. Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2016. Kindle AZW file.
When Hope Jahren was a young girl, she regularly visited her father's science lab at a community college in a small town in Minnesota. There, she felt at home and began to decide that she would become a scientist. Most evenings, she and her father spent the evening at the lab Afterwards, they walked home through the frigid Minnesota evening. They never talked, and Jahren looked back on the things she might have learned from her father if they had. Her mother was equally reticent to communicate feelings. Though she could not fully define what was missing from her family, Jahren grew up missing the warmth of love.
She was a graduate assistant at Berkeley when she met Bill. He was serious and intelligent, and they connected immediately. Jahren set out to secure funding to get Bill a place in the lab where she worked. They soon found themselves planning for their first lab together. When Jahren got her first job, Bill moved with her. They never had a romantic connection, but the two were family to each other in ways that their real families were not. Together, they set out to study various aspects of plant science though Jahren struggled to earn recognition and funding for their work. Their early efforts met with little real success in the academic world, but they remained dedicated. When Jahren felt inclined to give in to her fears of failure, Bill provided encouragement.
Lab Girl By Hope Jahren Summary
Bill was something of a loner. He was missing part of one hand and had a horrible childhood because of it. He confided in Jahren that he did not participate in any group activities, nor did he ever date. He apparently never had any real friends, either. Jahren knew in her heart that Bill would always have a place in her life as her family and in her work as a scientist. Through those early years, Jahren struggled with manic-depression until a doctor recognized her symptoms and helped her get on a medical regimen that helped.
Lab Girl Review
While working at Johns Hopkins, Jahren met and married a mathematician named Clint. When Jahren became pregnant, she had to stop all medications. This sent her spiraling into a serious depression. Download cxt modems driver. She was hospitalized for long periods and suffered through the first months after giving birth until she could safely start up some of the medications. She worried that she would not be able to show her son the love that she had missed as a child, but she soon found that she was completely devoted to him. In an effort to end the cycle of silence between parents and children in her family, she showed him her love at every opportunity.
Clint landed a permanent position at the University of Hawaii, which prompted Jahren's family to move. Atel usb devices driver. That move included Bill. Together Bill and Jahren set up yet another lab and continued their work.