In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.

Liked:

• This book is full of interesting tidbits about the dust storms that ravaged the Great Plains. My knowledge of the Dust Bowl is limited to whatever Steinbeck said about it in Grapes of Wrath, so most of this was new to me. For example, I had no idea that there was just so DAMN MUCH of the stuff blowing around that people and animals ingested it and died because dirt and silica clogged up their lungs. Wow.
• Speaking of silica, I didn’t know that was one of the main components of Great Plains dirt. Can you imagine having that stuff cutting into your skin all the time? Egan did a nice job with the descriptions of what the dirt did not only to houses and farm equipment, but also to people, clothing, and food.
• I liked the parts where Egan talked about the wider ramifications of the dust storms, such as how the worst ones reached all the way to New York or whatever. Again, I simply didn’t know that anything like that happened, so this account was enlightening in many respects.
• Another thing that I’d never heard mentioned before was the fact that the dust storms also created a lot of static electricity. It was fascinating to read how people couldn’t shake hands for fear of electrocuting each other and how they had to trail chains off the backs of their cars to ground them.

Disliked:

• The story was told from too many different perspectives. I understand and appreciate why Egan would want to use so many different diaries and interviews from people who lived through that period, but the names were impossible for me to keep straight and I didn’t feel a personal connection to ANY of the individuals or families portrayed in the book. As a result, I think it would have been better to pare things down and stick to just a few firsthand sources instead of cramming everything in there.
• I did not need to read such gory details about the rabbit slaughters. Seriously, a brief mention would have been fine, but for Egan to go on and on about how thousands of rabbits were herded into a pen and then clubbed to death with baseball bats and axe handles was just nasty. I understand that those folks considered rabbits a pest, but still… my god.
• The information got to be extremely repetitive after a while. One dust storm wasn’t all that different from the others, so it became tiresome getting the details about so many of them. They all caused huge amounts to topsoil to be blown away; created massive dunes in some places; reduced visibility to zero; caused people to stay in their homes; made farming impossible; caused numerous deaths; and created general mayhem. Again, a few descriptions of a few storms would have been sufficient.
• I would have liked to have read more about the recovery process. I know this book was focused on the “hard times,” but after so many depressing tales, I wanted a bit more of an uplifting ending instead of the meager paragraphs about how much of the area is now protected grassland. Maybe I’ve just been over-conditioned by Hollywood to expect the best!

Rating:

I was looking forward to The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan because the book covered a topic I knew little about and because it was the 2006 National Book Award winner for nonfiction. While there were some good things about the book, I found it to be more tiresome and repetitive than not, which seriously detracted from my enjoyment of it. Overall I give this work 3 stars out of 5.

Why has Amazon been so successful? Much of it has to do with Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder, whose unique combination of character traits and business strategy have driven Amazon to the top of the online retail world.

Richard Brandt charts Bezos’s rise from computer nerd to world- changing entrepreneur. His success can be credited to his forward-looking insights and ruthless business sense. Brandt explains:

• Why Bezos decided to allow negative product reviews, correctly guessing that the earned trust would outweigh possible lost sales.
• Why Amazon zealously guards some patents yet freely shares others.
• Why Bezos called becoming profitable the “dumbest” thing they could do in 1997.
• How Amazon.com became one of the only dotcoms to survive the bust of the early 2000s.
• Where the company is headed next.

Through interviews with Amazon employees, competitors, and observers, Brandt has deciphered how Bezos makes decisions. The story of Amazon’s ongoing evolution is a case study in how to reinvent an entire industry, and one that anyone in business today ignores at their peril.

Liked:

• This book gave a straightforward and mostly chronological (after the first chapter, anyway) account of how Amazon.com rose from humble beginnings to become the world’s largest retailer. It was a pretty amazing journey, even in this Internet age that produces billionaires practically overnight.
• There was plenty of coverage given to Amazon’s business model and the various strategies the company used to expand and sustain growth through the early part of the last decade. I never really followed business news at that time (especially not for dot-coms), so a lot of the information in the book, while probably freely available online, was still new to me and had the added benefit of being compiled all in one place.
• I feel like there was just the right amount of information presented. It was neither so much that it delved into dry business talk that left me bored, nor so little that I felt the need to do my own research to complete the picture.

Disliked:

• The author wasn’t given access to Bezos despite numerous interview requests. While I can appreciate that this is hardly Brandt’s fault, it does detract from the book a bit. Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of other biographies or profiles where the subject wasn’t directly interviewed, but still… That’s just my personal feeling here.
• The book could have done with more analysis from Brandt. He mostly just laid out the facts without really talking about the larger implications of what was happening.

Rating:

One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com by Richard L. Brandt was a decent enough book for what it was: a brief, need-to-know look at how Bezos created Amazon.com and turned it into one of the most successful dot-coms still in existence. There’s not a whole lot of depth here, and most of the information can probably be found online, but instead of wading through Google for several days trying to come up with relevant articles, you can just pick up this book. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.

Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.

Liked:

• I wasn’t actually interested in President Garfield before reading this book, but was drawn to it by the great title. Fortunately, the content did not disappoint, and I think I learned a lot from Millard’s work.
• Garfield sounded like a pretty amazing individual, not so much for the “rising from poverty” aspect of his story (frankly, lots of folks did that back then and do that now) as for his intellectual capabilities. All the languages he mastered, becoming president of a university at the age of 26, etc. I can’t see a guy like that becoming president in this day and age.
• I enjoyed reading about the strong bond between Garfield and his wife Lucretia. He was clearly devoted to her and worried about her during her illness, and of course she couldn’t wait to be by his side after learning of the assassination attempt. I particularly liked learning that Lucretia used stationery with a black (mourning) border from the time of her husband’s death until her own. It showed that her love for him never flagged.
• The insight into Charles Guiteau (the assassin) was absolutely fascinating. He sounded like an utter leech right from the beginning, borrowing money from people he barely knew, skipping out on his boarding house debts, refusing to pay train fare, etc. How did someone like that even survive? It made me wish people had refused him money so he would have starved to death before carrying out his evil plan.
• The look at early 19th-century medicine was stomach-turning, to say the least. It’s hard to believe that cleanliness and hygiene counted for so very little back then and that doctors kept dried blood and pus from previous surgeries on their lab coats as “evidence” of their experience and competence. Wow.
• Unfortunately, I thought Guiteau had a bit of a point when, during his trial, he claimed that his bullet didn’t kill Garfield; the unclean practices and incompetence of the president’s doctors did. He was right. He still deserved to hang, of course, but those doctors should have been held accountable in some way.

Disliked:

• All the stuff about Alexander Graham Bell felt out of place in this book. I realize that Bell played a huge part in trying to identify the location of the bullet in Garfield’s body, but it wasn’t worth reading so much about his life (his booth at the World’s Fair, his history of teaching the deaf, his marriage). Save that stuff for a different book.
• Guiteau was clearly deranged, and his actions showed it. But I wish the author had delved more into the possible causes of his mental state. Was it hereditary, as his lawyer tried to argue at the trial? Were some of his problems the result of a Chronic migraine condition? Or was he just a religious zealot? I wanted to hear some more theories!
• Reading about the dirty dealings and crooked politicians of Garfield’s time showed me that nothing has really changed in that arena even after 130 years.

Rating

I found Destiny of the Republic to be a highly engrossing and fascinating read — particularly for someone who has never before delved into the subject of Garfield’s assassination. I’m sure there are other, more scholarly works out there, but Candice Millard’s book was just right for me. It was neither too long nor too academic, but it was still well researched and well presented. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I’m a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth. The result is a book filled with hysterical scenes of one man’s attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended if at times bemused love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away.

Liked:

• I know the reading public’s opinion on Bryson is pretty evenly divided into those that think he’s funny and those that think he tries to hard and falls well short of the mark. I tend to subscribe to the former belief, and therefore enjoyed many smiles and chuckles while reading this book.
• I think Bryson did a nice job of capturing the things that strangers to America would find odd, funny, or endearing. I studied abroad for two years while in college, and when returning home even after such a short time away, I noticed many of the same things that Bryson did. Having some of the same experiences as the author greatly increased my appreciation of the book.
• This volume is actually comprised of recycled newspaper columns that Bryson wrote for a British publication upon moving back to America. As such, each piece is a quick read presented in an easily digestible chunk.
• Some of my favorite essays include the graduation speech to a group of N.H. high school seniors; the one about the author dropping his oldest son off at college; the one about the often incomprehensible instructions accompanying computers and similar devices; and the several odes to small-town America that are sprinkled throughout the pages.

Disliked:

• Some of Bryson’s setups for the columns were so outlandish–and obviously contrived simply for the purpose of serving as an introduction–as to take me right out of the reading experience. Obviously not all of the things Bryson wrote about actually happened to him, and he clearly allows himself a great deal of poetic license when “retelling” certain events. I understand that, and am not asking for a purely factual account of incidents in his life. But still… the essays would have been much improved if the setups were just a bit more plausible.
• I didn’t like Bryson’s occasional forays into political philosophy, including his rant about the U.S. government’s stance on the illegality of drugs. If I want to read about politics, I’ll pick up a book by an analyst. I just wanted to be entertained here, not subjected to the author’s opinions on the law.
• Even though this book was short, the theme felt pretty played out by the time I reached the end. I think it had to do with Bryson portraying himself as a bumbling idiot who was completely overwhelmed by the tiniest obstacle. I mean, yes, there are a lot of ridiculous rules and regulations out there, but you don’t have to be a doofus to be befuddled by them. Was he just trying to be self-deprecating? I don’t know; but the shtick got old.

Rating:

In her most provocative book to date, Ann Coulter argues that liberals exhibit all the psychological characteristics of a mob, for instance:

Liberal Groupthink: “The same mob mentality that leads otherwise law-abiding people to hurl rocks at cops also leads otherwise intelligent people to refuse to believe anything they haven’t heard on NPR.”

Liberal Schemes: “No matter how mad the plan is—Fraternité, the ‘New Soviet Man,’ the Master Race, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Building a New Society, ObamaCare—a mob will believe it.”

Liberal Enemies: “Instead of ‘counterrevolutionaries,’ liberals’ opponents are called ‘haters,’ ‘those who seek to divide us,’ ‘tea baggers,’ and ‘right-wing hate groups.’ Meanwhile, conservatives call liberals ‘liberals’—and that makes them testy.”

Liberal Justice: “In the world of the liberal, as in the world of Robespierre, there are no crimes, only criminals.”

Liberal Violence: “If Charles Manson’s followers hadn’t killed Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, Clinton would have pardoned him, too, and he’d probably be teaching at Northwestern University.”

Citing the father of mob psychology, Gustave Le Bon, Coulter catalogs the Left’s mob behaviors: the creation of messiahs, the fear of scientific innovation, the mythmaking, the preference for images over words, the lack of morals, and the casual embrace of contradictory ideas.

Coulter traces the history of the liberal mob to the French Revolution and Robespierre’s revolutionaries (delineating a clear distinction from America’s founding fathers), who simply proclaimed that they were exercising the “general will” before slaughtering their fellow citizens “for the good of mankind.”

Similarly, as Coulter demonstrates, liberal mobs, from student radicals to white-trash racists to anti-war and pro-ObamaCare fanatics today, have consistently used violence to implement their idea of the “general will.”

This is not the American tradition; it is the tradition of Stalin, of Hitler, of the guillotine—and the tradition of the American Left.

As the heirs of the French Revolution, Democrats have a history that consists of pandering to mobs, time and again, while Republicans, heirs to the American Revolution, have regularly stood for peaceable order.

Hoping to muddy this horrifying truth, liberals slanderously accuse conservatives of their own crimes—assassination plots, conspiracy theorizing, political violence, embrace of the Ku Klux Klan. Coulter shows that the truth is the opposite: Political violence—mob violence—is always a Democratic affair.

Surveying two centuries of mob movements, Coulter demonstrates that the mob is always destructive. And yet, she argues, beginning with the civil rights movement in the sixties, Americans have lost their natural, inherited aversion to mobs. Indeed, most Americans have no idea what they are even dealing with.

Only by recognizing the mobs and their demonic nature can America begin to defend itself.

Liked:

• I absolutely loved the chapters about the French Revolution. That is one of my favorite periods in history (though I’m not an expert by any means), and I have always been baffled as to why the event is often held up as something to be admired and applauded. It was bloody and brutal, with tens of thousands of innocent people murdered by the mobs. I enjoyed reading Coulter’s interpretation and analysis of the events, and found myself agreeing with her often.
• The stuff about the Central Park jogger was fairly frightening. That event happened when I wasn’t yet old enough to care much about what was happening in the outside world, so a lot of what I read from Coulter was new to me. What a travesty that the perpetrators — all part of a mob that descended on the park that night — had their convictions overturned based on the completely unreliable confession of an inmate who had nothing to lose and a lot to gain by coming forward.
• The chapters in this book weren’t merely rehashes of Coulter’s past columns. Even if you’re a regular reader of her weekly work, this book will be entirely new to you (as it was to me).
• I LOVED how Coulter stuck up for Sarah Palin throughout the entire book. Admittedly, I was surprised by this since Coulter has blasted Palin on various talk shows recently, but I definitely enjoyed how she took the time to dismantle many of the unfair attacks against Palin in this one.
• I liked the amount of wit and sarcasm in Demonic. I’ve complained that sometimes Coulter goes a bit too far with her insults, making her sound more juvenile than anything else. But think she showed a little more restraint here. Her cutting remarks were well-placed and made me laugh out loud more often than not.

Disliked:

• Just about the only thing I disliked about Demonic was that it was too short!! I was left wanting way more, because goodness knows there are plenty of additional examples of liberal mob mentality out there.
• Sometimes Coulter focused too much on specific individuals (particularly Obama’s pals and advisers) instead of sticking to the mob theme. Although I certainly agree with her in principle, I don’t know that small extremist groups qualify as perpetrating mob action. Ditto for Janet Reno and all her massive blunders as Attorney General. Yes, Coulter was talking more about how liberals in general (i.e. the mob) supported Reno; but still, it felt like a departure from the theme of the book.

Rating:

I’m not a knee-jerk conservative, so I don’t automatically like books just because they’re written by right-wing authors. In fact, Ann Coulter’s books have always been hit-or-miss for me. But I found Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America to be an excellently argued, well-written “position paper” on how group think has harmed and continues to threaten society. I give the book 4 stars out of 5.

From Columbus to George W. Bush (that’s a lot of material, people), Leland leads us through American history’s mythconceptions, exposing idiocy and inanity along the time line. He reeducates by informing us about myths. For example, Samuel Prescott actually was the guy to alert us that the British were coming and not that Paul Revere dude.

Move over Colbert and Stewart; satire has finally found its rightful place in American history.

Liked:

• The information in the book was presented in easily digestible chunks. There was only one anecdote per page, and few of those took up more than a single paragraph. This book was very easy to browse through when I had nothing better to do.
• As with the other Leland Gregory books I’ve read from the same “Stupid…” series, this one was completely free at the Kindle store. There’s really no way I would pay for anything from this author!

Disliked:

• I don’t know what Gregory has against citing his work, but here again he offers absolutely zero corroboration for his version of the “truth”. There’s no way any of his stuff can be taken the least bit seriously until he starts adding footnotes or citations for readers to check out.
• I can’t believe the synopsis from the publisher actually says, “Move over Colbert and Stewart…” Um, no. Just… no.
• The drawings and illustrations in the book were incredibly cheesy, and even a bit embarrassing. I was reading this on my Kindle while getting my hair cut one day, and had to endure odd looks from my stylist as she caught glimpses of the illustrations. They looked like something that would be found in a children’s book, and, what’s worse, the same ones were repeated throughout the entire thing. Why were they even there? To pad the page count? Ridiculous.
• Lots of stuff in the book was simply inaccurate. I can’t be bothered to trot out page numbers right now (I’ve already deleted the thing from my Kindle), but several errors jumped right out at me — and I’m not exactly an expert on American history.

Rating:

Well, since I love trivia of all kinds and since this book was both easy to read and free, I’m going to be generous and give it 2 stars out of 5. But really, the book pretty much sucks and I don’t recommend spending money on it.

Since that time, America has changed rapidly some would even say seismically. And many believe these shifts are doing more than just rocking the political and social climate; they’re rocking the American core.

What are these changes? Who, in addition to President Obama, have been the biggest forces behind them? What exactly do they mean for you, the everyday American citizen? How are they affecting your money, health, safety, freedom, and standing in this nation? Which are Pinheaded moves and which are truly Patriotic? In his latest spirited book, O’Reilly prompts further debate with the President and the American people on the current state of the union.

Liked:

• I have read O’Reilly’s past books and find his writing style enjoyable. It is straightforward and direct, and he doesn’t resort to flowery prose and overblown metaphors to get his point across. That can be refreshing at times.
• This book had a few interesting tidbits about some of the special deals that were made in order to get Obamacare passed. Remember when Obama came into office and promised “change” and “transparency”? Ha ha ha!!!

Disliked:

• The entire last chapter about O’Reilly’s 2008 interview with Obama, complete with updated analysis from Bill, was tedious and a waste of time. I skimmed/skipped that part.
• Some of the people O’Reilly labeled as pinheads didn’t really deserve that distinction. I felt this was done primarily because Bill disagreed with their position, and not because they had done anything pinheaded.
• O’Reilly pumped himself up too much at various points throughout the book. I notice that he does this in most of his books, and while I gave him a pass on this tendency in his memoir A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity, I found it tiresome here. Yeah, we get it, Bill. You’re awesome. Now please stop reminding us in every book!
• I had to wonder why O’Reilly focused so much on historical figures rather than current politicians. Was he scared of stirring up some controversy? And where was his take on Sarah Palin? I can’t believe someone as polarizing as her would be left out of a book like this. Maybe he had nothing good to say about her and just didn’t want to piss off their mutual employer FOX News.

Rating:
I usually like Bill O’Reilly’s books, but this one fell way short of expectations. I guess it was just too tall a task to try to keep a single meme interesting throughout an entire book. I give Pinheads and Patriots 2 stars out of 5.

* Best-selling author Leland Gregory employs his masterful wit to expose historical myths, faux “facts,” strange events, and tales of human stupidity throughout history.

If it would shock you to learn that Benjamin Franklin didn’t discover electricity, you’ll appreciate this take on hundreds of historical legends and debacles. Historians and humorists alike may be surprised to learn that:

* Samuel Prescott made the famous horseback ride into Concord, not Paul Revere.

* As a member of Parliament, Isaac Newton spoke only once. He asked for an open window.

* On April 24, 1898, Spain declared war on the U.S., thus starting the Spanish-American War. The U.S. declared war the very next day, but not wanting to be outdone, had the date on the declaration changed from April 25 to April 21.

With these and many other stories, leading humorist Leland Gregory once again highlights both the strange and the funny side of humankind.

Liked:

• This was a very easy, breezy read. A majority of the anecdotes cover less than a page, so it didn’t take long at all to get through this book. Plus, the non-chronological presentation means it’s possible to read from cover to cover (as I did) or by picking and choosing at random.
• I love trivia, so the subject matter was right up my alley. I enjoy learning little tidbits like this that actual history books might otherwise gloss over. I’m not going to be able to go out there and pass the AP History exam or anything like that, but of course that’s not the point of the book.
• Gregory sprinkled the book with plenty of puns and other attempts at humor. Some of the attempts were successful; others were not. But I appreciated the effort at making this a lighthearted affair.

Disliked:

• I didn’t notice this when I was reading the book, but a few other reviewers have mentioned that Gregory’s facts are sometimes inaccurate. That’s kind of ironic (and sloppy) given the subject matter, so it would be unfortunate if the inaccuracy claims are true.

Rating:

Overall, I thought Stupid History by Leland Gregory was worth the read. I got it as a free Kindle download (it was a limited promotion, I believe), which was fine. I’m not sure that I would have felt the same way about the book if I’d actually paid for it. As it is though, Stupid History was sufficiently entertaining and easy to read, so I give it 3 stars out of 5.

With Saverin’s funding their tiny start-up went from dorm room to Silicon Valley. But conflicting ideas about Facebook’s future transformed the friends into enemies. Soon, the undergraduate exuberance that marked their collaboration turned into out-and-out warfare as it fell prey to the adult world of venture capitalists, big money, and lawyers.

Liked:

• I liked that this book was easy to read. I spent no more than a couple days on it, which is about all it end up being worth. At least I didn’t have to waste more time on it!
• I saw the movie before reading this book, and thought the film version of Saverin was highly sympathetic. In the film, it was clear that Mark and Sean Parker edged Saverin out unfairly, and the actor who played Saverin did a good job of showing the emotional pain and distress involved in losing what he thought was a true friend. In the book, however, Saverin doesn’t come off nearly as well. The book made it sound like he was squeezed out of Facebook due to his own bad choices, such as pursuing an internship in New York instead of moving to Palo Alto to help get Facebook off the ground. Saverin also cut off Facebook’s funding, which pushed Zuckerberg into Peter Thiel’s world and effectively ended Saverin’s role as business manager. So, yeah, even though Zuckerberg was a douche for pushing Saverin away (and paid for it thanks to a subsequent lawsuit), Saverin made his own bad choices too. It was good to see the other side of the coin here.

Disliked:

• This was hardly a balanced account of how Facebook was founded, as Mezrich mostly only talked to Eduardo Saverin. As a result, the book felt like nothing more than secondhand information or hearsay, which made me wonder what was true and what wasn’t. It didn’t help that Mezrich included many “imagined” scenes in which he speculated about what Zuckerberg “might” have done or thought.
• What was with all the author describing all the “Asian girls” that were after Saverin? It seemed that every time some girl caught his eye, she was Asian. What was the author trying to say? I mean, why make the ethnic distinction at all?? Why not describe the girls in terms of their designer clothes or majors instead of their ethnicity? When the lingerie model went after Mark, were we told her ethnicity? No. So what was the deal with Eduardo’s girls?
• Is it just me, or is there something wrong with the world when a guy like Sean Parker can be attached to Facebook for all of three months and walk away with several million dollars for his “trouble”? Wow, talk about right place at the right time! Yes, Parker introduced Zuckerberg to Thiel and was therefore responsible for the first round of VC funding, but Mezrich made it clear that other VC groups were circling around trying to get on board. Zuckerberg and Facebook would have gotten money with or without Parker, IMO. I just can’t believe he somehow got his name attached to the project like that. (Oh, I guess he did convince Mark to drop the “the” from the website name….)
• I wish Mezrich would have made it clear why Parker was eventually forced out of Facebook. Was it really just for being busted at a party where minors were drinking alcohol?? That seems like such a petty thing. Then again, Zuckerberg did the same thing to people over and over, so I guess anything is possible.
• The stuff with the Winklevoss twins and their rowing endeavors was boring and unnecessary. Yes, the ConnectU angle was relevant, but I could have done without all the descriptions of them training, eating, and competing. Zzzzzz.

Rating:

Now that I’ve read the book, I am more convinced than ever that Aaron Sorkin deserved his Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. How he made a watchable movie from this source materials i nothing short of a miracle. If you’ve seen the movie, then you already know more than is even contained within these pages and really have no reason to spend time or money on The Accidental Billionaires. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

Liked:

• I had severe reservations about reading a book with such a scientific bent, but I simply couldn’t ignore all the positive reviews I’ve been seeing everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE.) I was shopping for cell phones one day and was in the middle of an htc review when the person mentioned this book. Seriously!!! As a result, I decided to give Henrietta Lacks a try — and was rewarded with one of the most engrossing books I’ve read in a long, long time. I positively tore through this book because the story was that compelling and engaging!
• I’m glad the Lacks family finally got some answers about what really happened with their mother’s cells and with sister Elsie. I’m a bit miffed that it took a good-looking, young white reporter to help them get those answers, but at least now they know.
• I thought Skloot did a tremendous job of explaining the science of HeLa so that laypeople could understand it. Sure, it helped that we also got the watered-down explanations that were also meant for Deborah’s benefit, but even the strictly narrative parts were done well.
• This has to be one of the most fascinating subjects I’ve ever read about. It’s amazing to think that the cancerous cells of one random, hitherto anonymous black woman from Virginia could have such a tremendously positive impact on science and the world in general.
• I appreciated Skloot’s portrayal of the various members of the Lacks family and agreed with her decision to show them warts and all. If she had tried to “pretty up” their speech or hide their various run-ins with the law, that would have done a disservice to both the family and readers.
• I like that Skloot set up a scholarship fund to ensure that Henrietta’s descendants will have an opportunity to pursue higher education. I believe Deborah — and Henrietta herself — would have been ecstatic to learn that the plan came to fruition.

Disliked:

• My heart ached for Elsie, especially with the knowledge that no one ever visited her again after Henrietta died. That poor, poor child.
• Deborah’s death scene was terribly poignant. It was well-written and touching, so I’m not including it in this section because it somehow detracted from the book. I just HATE the fact that Deborah, after going along for the 10-year ride and contributing so significantly to Skloot’s book, didn’t get to see the final product — or to see how the reading public has embraced her mother’s story. She deserved to see that, dammit!
• I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Deborah, with her very limited amount of formal schooling, to try to understand what happened to Henrietta. I think a lot of her heartache (not her anger, mind you, but her heartache) would have been diminished had she been able to understand from the beginning. I liked that she tried to get an education, and wish again that she had lived so that she could have used some of the book’s proceeds to take those classes she wanted to sign up for.
• The Afterword went on a bit long. By the time Skloot finished the “Where Are They Now” portion about the Lacks family, I was ready to close the book. But then she continued with the ethical issues regarding cell and tissue harvesting. I understand the desire to include that part in the book, and agree that it does fit in with the subject matter, but — it simply wasn’t for me. A condensed version consisting of a few pages (with perhaps a list of resources for those that want to investigate further) would have sufficed.

Rating:

Without a doubt, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read. Rebecca Skloot is a talented writer who does a tremendous job of making an already interesting story even more gripping and personal. This is a book that held my complete attention from beginning to end, and I’m sure it will captivate you as well. I give it 5 stars out of 5.