[books 2010] catching up again
Nov. 1st, 2010 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro67. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
This was reviewed in New Scientist when it came out and the author was later on Start the Week, at which point my library finally got a copy.
This is the story of the HeLa line of "immortal" cells - the first cells scientists managed to keep alive in culture, and of Henrietta Lacks, the woman that the cells were taken from. Without her knowledge or consent.
This book is about a lot of things - the scientific advances made possible by the ability to keep cells alive in culture; the family history of Henrietta Lacks and her offspring; medical ethics.
As a whole and in all its parts it's a fascinating read. I haven't read a non-fiction book so quickly in years.
The parts about Lacks and her family are pretty harrowing though. It's not just that she was poor - her family was the sort in which there was perpetual, generational domestic violence and sexual abuse, and the poverty in which her rural relatives in Clover, Virginia still live today is astounding.
And who says watching TV doesn't teach you anything - Lacks lived in Baltimore and her cells were cultured there at Johns Hopkins. From years of watching The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street, I was able to visualise the settings and hear the accents in a way that I couldn't have before.
Highly, highly recommended.
68. The Whisperers by John Connolly
It is no secret that I'm a huge fan of Connolly's. It usually takes me about three days to read his books. This one took me two weeks - there's nothing quantitatively wrong with it (I even charged through the previous one that I thought was a bit weak), but something about it didn't grab me. Except the last third.
Connolly always builds his story around real-world things, but usually they're obscure and long-past things, whereas the frame for this is that an ancient evil was looted from the Baghdad Museum in 2003 and has come back to Charlie Parker's neck of the woods. Charlie has his PI licence back and is asked to investigate what drove a ex-serviceman to suicide by the man's father. The Maine setting as always is well drawn and creepy as hell.
Like I said, there's nothing wrong with this book and his prose is lovely in places as always, but it didn't compel me to read it in the way his other works have.
69. Kissing Sin by Keri Arthur
The sequel to Full Moon Rising, which I read a couple of years back. It's like James Bond but with werewolves, vampires etc and the sex is more frequent and pornographic. Set in Australia. I'd say it's a guilty pleasure and that there's no possible excuse for reading these books, except that it's better written than it has any right to be, is extremely fast-paced - between the action and the "action" there's not a dull moment. Arthur's written a lot of books, and while they're not at the top of my "must read now" list, she's certainly got my interest.
This was reviewed in New Scientist when it came out and the author was later on Start the Week, at which point my library finally got a copy.
This is the story of the HeLa line of "immortal" cells - the first cells scientists managed to keep alive in culture, and of Henrietta Lacks, the woman that the cells were taken from. Without her knowledge or consent.
This book is about a lot of things - the scientific advances made possible by the ability to keep cells alive in culture; the family history of Henrietta Lacks and her offspring; medical ethics.
As a whole and in all its parts it's a fascinating read. I haven't read a non-fiction book so quickly in years.
The parts about Lacks and her family are pretty harrowing though. It's not just that she was poor - her family was the sort in which there was perpetual, generational domestic violence and sexual abuse, and the poverty in which her rural relatives in Clover, Virginia still live today is astounding.
And who says watching TV doesn't teach you anything - Lacks lived in Baltimore and her cells were cultured there at Johns Hopkins. From years of watching The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street, I was able to visualise the settings and hear the accents in a way that I couldn't have before.
Highly, highly recommended.
68. The Whisperers by John Connolly
It is no secret that I'm a huge fan of Connolly's. It usually takes me about three days to read his books. This one took me two weeks - there's nothing quantitatively wrong with it (I even charged through the previous one that I thought was a bit weak), but something about it didn't grab me. Except the last third.
Connolly always builds his story around real-world things, but usually they're obscure and long-past things, whereas the frame for this is that an ancient evil was looted from the Baghdad Museum in 2003 and has come back to Charlie Parker's neck of the woods. Charlie has his PI licence back and is asked to investigate what drove a ex-serviceman to suicide by the man's father. The Maine setting as always is well drawn and creepy as hell.
Like I said, there's nothing wrong with this book and his prose is lovely in places as always, but it didn't compel me to read it in the way his other works have.
69. Kissing Sin by Keri Arthur
The sequel to Full Moon Rising, which I read a couple of years back. It's like James Bond but with werewolves, vampires etc and the sex is more frequent and pornographic. Set in Australia. I'd say it's a guilty pleasure and that there's no possible excuse for reading these books, except that it's better written than it has any right to be, is extremely fast-paced - between the action and the "action" there's not a dull moment. Arthur's written a lot of books, and while they're not at the top of my "must read now" list, she's certainly got my interest.
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Date: 2010-11-02 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-02 03:24 pm (UTC)