The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – R. Skloot

And I continue with the nonfiction…Seriously, it’s time for some fiction.  But, I have to say, I really enjoyed The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

 

A quick summary: Henrietta Lacks was around thirty years old when she was diagnosed with cancer.  Without her knowledge or consent, some of her cells were taken by the doctors for research purposes.  Henrietta died, but her cells (now known as HeLa cells) kept on living and multiplying and being used for research.  Her family had no idea this was going on and only found out years later. 

I learned so much from this book.  First of all, I learned about HeLa cells and how they have helped science and humanity.  I learned about the history of informed consent and why it is necessary, and I learned about the debate surrounding tissue/cell research.  But most importantly, I learned about a family trying to understand what happened to their mother, how they were affected, and how everyone found a way to cope.

I think this quote that the author includes right at the beginning of the book was very appropriate: “We must not see any person as an abstraction.  Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” (Elie Wiesel, from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code).  Sometimes we think of HeLa cells and their benefits to science and research, and forget that HeLa was Henrietta, an individual, someone with a family that still mourns her.   

This is definitely a book I would recommend!

A Short Guide to a Happy Life, by A. Quindlen

Someone recommended this book a while ago, and because she had such great things to say, I decided to check it out.  This is more of an essay, in my opinion, than it is a book.  It’s a very, very quick read.  In this book/essay, the author basically encourages us to live life.  She says the only thing we, and only we, are ultimately responsible for is how we live our lives.

I agree.  I constantly pray that I may learn to live, really live, instead of just watching as things happen around me.  But I sometimes wonder what, exactly, that means and how you go about really living.  Maybe it’s just being grateful for the daily, small things in life – working, reading, cooking,…Maybe it means we should just go out and do, where it doesn’t necessarily matter what we’re doing or who we’re with (provided, of course, we’re not breaking laws or anything like that), just as long as we’re doing something and trying and learning new things.  Maybe it’s all those things together, and maybe it’s something that hasn’t ever even crossed my mind before.

Maybe living our lives means simply finding out what we’re supposed to do and what we sincerely long to do (the so-called desires of our hearts) and doing it, without worrying too much about others’ opinions.  Interestingly, a few days after reading this book, I found this in, of all places, a fortune cookie: “There is only one success – to be able to live your life in your own way.”  Maybe that’s what it’s about.

Some Tame Gazelle, by B. Pym

Barbara Pym had been on my to-read list for a while now, so when I saw Some Tame Gazelle at a book sale, I snatched it up immediately.  I was not disappointed.

A quick summary:  Belinda and Harriet are two sisters (and spinsters) who live together.  Harriet loves doting on young curates, while Belinda has been in love with the Archdeacon for years now.  The Archdeacon is, by the way, married.  The book talks about things that happen in the town, including the arrival of two gentlemen and a few marriage proposals.

The back cover of the copy I have includes one review in which the reviewer says that Barbara Pym’s novels “remind me of Jane Austen loose in Cranford.”  After reading the book, I have to agree.  The novel, with the small-town atmosphere and the spinsters, definitely reminded me of Cranford.  The writing was very enjoyable, with some great comments here and there which you could easily miss if you don’t pay attention. 

I did a quick online search to learn more about Barbara Pym and read that she wrote Some Tame Gazelle when she was still pretty young, and when writing the book, she was supposedly imagining what she, her sister, and her friends would be like when they got older.  I thought that was really interesting!

One thing I kept thinking about while reading this novel was blindness and how so many times we don’t see things that are extremely obvious.  One thing that comes to mind is this:  Belinda seems to be smart and sensible, and yet she doesn’t seem to see what a jerk the Archdeacon is.  Personally, I did not like him at all, and wonder what Belinda sees or ever saw in him.  And that leads me to wonder: in what ways am I blind, not seeing what is clear to everyone else?  Most importantly, how do we who are blind learn to see?

I enjoyed Some Tame Gazelle very much.  It is the type of book that is good not necessarily because of the plot or the story, but because of the writing and the pleasure reading good writing gives.  I look forward to reading some more of her books in the future.

In the Garden of Beasts, by E. Larson

Well, I lied.  Here I am reviewing another nonfiction book.  Every once in a while, several books I have on hold at the local library become available at the same time, and I end up with a pile of books I have to finish reading in two weeks.  That’s what happened in this case.  Several nonfiction books I had on hold suddenly became available at the same time.  In the Garden of Beasts was one of these books, and it was very good.  I expected it to be good, since I had already read several good reviews. 

A quick summary:  William Dodd is appointed as the U.S. ambassador to Germany in the early 1930s.  He and his family move to Berlin.  At this point in time, Nazism is pretty big in Germany.  There have already been several attacks on Jews and occasionally on American citizens as well, for things such as failing to use the Nazi salute.  The book mostly focuses on Dodd and his daughter Martha, and how they both start to realize what is really going on in Germany.

Although I have read several WWII books (Unbroken being the latest one – amazing book!), this book provided a completely new perspective, one I hadn’t read about before: that of American citizens in Germany.  Also interesting about this book is that it focuses only on the years preceding and leading up to WWII.  I learned a little about the different Nazi officials and about politics in those days.  It was interesting to see how some people were able to quickly realize what was going on and to predict what would happen, and yet other people were in a way completely blind.  When reading other WWII books and the horrible things that took place, I often wondered how we could have let it happen, how we could have let people get away with these things and not stop them.  This book helped me better understand the political climate of the world at that point in history, and better understand why it took so long for the world to realize something had to be done.

The book did a great job of in a way being a history lesson, while at the same time keeping it personal and interesting, through the main characters of Dodd and Martha.  When looking at things through Dodd’s point of view, we saw more of the politics side of things.  When looking at things through Martha’s point of view, we are introduced to the people she interacted with and the men she dated – some of these men were highly ranked officials, and in many ways, very influential.

Overall, this was a great read!