Lab Girl

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren   289 pages

A rare and emotionally engaging close-up look at the development and practice of science, its empowerment and challenges, and the ability of Hope Jahren to transform influences from her father and her questing personality into a successful career in paleoecology. From her time helping her father manage the physics lab, she came to appreciate the outlook of scientific inquiry, feel empowered in a laboratory full of equipment she could master, and get rewarded from problem solving. I actually wanted more about the science and her contributions, but that would impede the more substantial success this memoir has as a portrait of a partnership with Bill, a graduate student who became a lab manager, technician, and essential collaborator in all her research.

I so loved the snap of the quirky dialog she reconstructed from their day to day lives in the lab or on the road at exotic study sites. The humor is fresh, often slapstick, sarcastic or ironic, but it makes an effective channel for them both that combines unconditional support and brutal honesty. The scenarios with Bill that she spins out like acts on a stage careen from low points of self-deprecation and absurdist dissipation of their failures to driven efforts to reach a goal with many all-night stints in the lab or busting ass and threatening their health in the field. And sometimes they get epiphanies over results and rewarding dreams of glory over their discoveries and, more practically, some payback in near-term job security. I also loved the adventures she and Bill have in building labs at different academic postings she climbs and in their entertaining trips to scavenge equipment and in student instruction through field trips. The latter trips with students in soil science involve almost unbelievable tales of camping, excavations, and sampling work, disasters with vehicles, and R&R trips to odd tourist spots like Reptile World.

Interspersed with the narrative history, Jahren inserts lyrical reveries and essays on how the lives and wonders of plants inform her understanding of herself and the planet. Many of these mental excursions make for metaphors of lessons for her own life. It is a tribute to her writing or teaching style that these stealth botany lessons are so entertaining that we are educated unawares.

My only concern about the book is that Jahren details all the negative aspects of her personal and professional journeys. Although she deserves kudos for baring all, it is only in reading the book jacket that we learn that she is a celebrated and highly awarded scientist. None of these accolades are alluded to in her narrative, which  I think does a disservice to her mentorship of future (especially female) scientists. 

Posted by: Regina C.  

The Last Camellia

The Last Camellia by Sarah Jio    320 pages

 I’m a fan of author Sarah Jio’s. I adored The Violets of March and Goodnight June. I also like Blackberry Winter, but that novel had its drawbacks. And as sorry as I am to have to say this so does The Last Camellia.

One of the things that I like about Jio is that most of her stories have dualing timelines, and this one is no exception. In 2000, Addison Sinclair’s ugly past is rearing its head. She grew up tormented in a foster home by a boy who also lived there. Now he is out of prison and stalking Addison. Luckily for her, her in-laws have purchased an old estate in England. She convinces her husband that Livingston Manor would be the perfect place for him to do research for his new novel. It didn’t take much convincing and within a week the couple is taking up residence at his parents’ new pet project.

The manor is daunting. It’s huge, with wings and suites. It also comes with a staff who seems to have been there since the before World War II, especially the housekeeper, Mrs. Dilloway, who reminded me of Mrs. Danvers from Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Addison, a botanist, is enchanted with the orchard, especially the camellia trees. When she stumbles upon the late Lady Anna’s old gardening notebooks, questions begin to rise.

In the dualing time line, Flora, and amateur botanist, leaves America for England in 1940 under false pretenses. She goes to Livingstone Manor as a nanny, but in actuality she is searching for the Middlebury Pink, a famed camellia that is virtually extinct. An international ring of flower thieves has convinced her to go look for the tree. The thieves threaten her parents if she doesn’t cooperate.

The story moves quickly and easily. In the beginning, it was unputdownable. But as the plot progressed, more and more questions were brought up than were answered. By the time I finished, I was ready to throw the book across the room. It was almost Jio got bored, didn’t want to make the novel any longer, or was on a tight deadline. There are so many unanswered plot points. 

Since I have loved, half hated The Last Camellia, it gets 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Signature Of All Things

The Signature Of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, 501 pages

This is the story of Alma, born in the 1800's, who ends up a brilliant botanist in a time when women were not allowed to do such things.  We get to see Alma from before she was born, really, as the book begins with a little about her parents and how they met but barely 50 pages into the book, Alma is born, and the rest of the book centers solely around her life.  Although she was plain, she was brilliant, and in many ways her life was extraordinary.  In other ways, her life was very ordinary.  The book was very good at showing her life as a complete picture.  I thought it was really good and parts of it were fascinating.  Someone said that this book was better than "Eat, Pray, Love", but now, having liked this book so much, I feel the need to compare them so I'll have to go read the other now.