The weather here has been over-whelmingly gray, which greatly influences my desire to nap. I've been doing a lot of reading. I've temporarily thrown over the "Infinite Jest", partly because I feel the need to read something a bit less relentless, and partly because I want to have the satisfaction of finishing a book. Dave's parents give him a subscription to "American Scientist" every year for Christmas. I'm not sure how often he reads it (perhaps in part because they quickly get sequestered to my side of the bed), but surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoy it. There are book reviews in the back of each issue, and one of the books that recently caught my eye was "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", so when I decided to take a break from, as my dad put it the other day, the "Long Joke", *har-har*, that's the book I downloaded. That sounds so sci-fi, "downloaded", and yet, there it is.
I read it in three days. I couldn't put it down. As a general rule, I'm terrible at writing book reviews. I feel as though my saying "I couldn't put it down," sums my feelings about it up rather nicely. The purpose of the book was to reveal the little known history of Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman from whom HeLa cells originated, cells which have proven to be invaluable in the world of science and medicine. Almost every drug and medical treatment that's out there most likely owes it's existence to research done with HeLa cells, from polio vaccines to in vitro fertilization. In fact, when I first read the review in "American Scientist", I mentioned it to Dave and he said "Oh, yeah, HeLa cells. They're everywhere." The rub is that neither Henrietta Lacks or her family knew that a sample of her cells were taken from a cancerous tumor, much less cultured and eventually shipped off to research labs all over the world, making lots of people lots of money, seemingly everyone but the Lacks family. Ms. Lacks passed away in the '50's and her family didn't find out about the existence of the cells until the '70's. The author, Rebecca Skloot, does a truly amazing job of weaving science and the question of tissue/genetic rights around the family's story. You should go read Jad Abumrad's review of the book on amazon. It's far better than anything I could come up with. Also, you should go read the book. It really will blow your mind.
The book I'm currently reading is "Townie: a Memoir" by Andre Dubus III. To be frank, I'm not generally a fan of non-fiction, much less biographies, but between this book and "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", I'm not sure I can say that with as much confidence anymore.