Immortal In More Ways Than One

Like mom, I really enjoyed this book. I thought that the story was an interesting one and one that needed to be told. I wish that there had been more information about Henrietta herself because her story is the one I found the most interesting but I know that that is nearly impossible. I was saddened by the way that she died and how much pain she must have been in. The story of the cells and the way they have shaped and changed the medical world was also very fascinating. I learned a lot about the medical research community that I did not know before. The book really made me think about the issue of who owns bodily tissue once it is removed and what kind of practical solution to this problem could be found.

I think that the main problem is not that the Lacks family did not receive money from her cells, but that there was no consent gained in the first place. Like the author mentions, back then there would have been no way for the Lacks family to gain from the cells monetarily, and now it is much too late. I was shocked to find that even today patients do not have rights to their tissues and the money that can be gained from science using them. It is because of these issues that I find this book to be more interesting in the ethical discussions it raises. What do doctors have to tell you and when? If all of us had the rights to every single one of our cells how would that change the face of science? It feels like people might try to exploit that right just the way doctor's exploited Henrietta. I appreciated this book because of the difficult issues it raises and its refusal to give easy answers.

Now for some bad news. Even though I thought the story was important I thought that the author may have been able to tell it better at certain points. The beginning half of the book was really engaging for me, however it seemed as though the author found it difficult to weave in the stories of Deborah into that previous narrative. This was the author's first book and it I feel that was very apparent; which is to say that is seemed a bit unorganized at times. But, all in all I found it enjoyable and much better than the first two books we had chosen for this club. I am looking forward to the next one!

Henrietta Lacks

As you can see by the speed in which I read this book, I loved it! I was sucked in right away with Henrietta's horrifying cancer ordeal. I was stunned to read how she suffered and was treated with such a lack of humanity. But I was glad that her suffering was not for naught; her life goes on through her cells. I was appalled by the fact that her family never received any monetary compensation while others became rich. I do not believe for one second that the original doctors that took her cells did not profit in some way. I feel that in some way the author of the book will profit in a big way, while the Lack's family will once again be left with very little. I know that this author set up an education fund and will put "some" proceeds from the sale of the book into the fund. this, however, is not enough. I'm going to try to track down that fund and donate myself. I encourage all of you to do the same. I feel compelled to not let Henrietta down but to let her family know that there are people out there that care and will try to help the family. the family that lost their mother. I'm not trying to over idealize Henrietta but she had a hard life and died a hard death. her children suffered, especially little Elsie, left alone in that frightening institution. it's a disgrace. being black in the jim crow south allowed this story to unfold the way that it did, and I for one, want to do something about it to pay restitution to the Lack's family.

what a book!!

Just wanted to post that I am absolutely loving the Henrietta Lack's Book. half way through and can't put it down! great book pick ladies!!!

The Third Book

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010: From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? --Tom Nissley

Henrietta and David Lacks, circa 1945.	Elsie Lacks, Henrietta’s older daughter, about five years before she was committed to Crownsville State Hospital, with a diagnosis of “idiocy.”	Deborah Lacks at about age four.	The home-house where Henrietta was raised, a four-room log cabin in Clover, Virginia, that once served as slave quarters. (1999)	s.

Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.	Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.	In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.	Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.

 


 The Lacks family in 2009.  





                                                                                                                                                              Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930



Here is the author's website:  http://rebeccaskloot.com 

The tentative end date will be June 30th.

Can't wait to hear what you all think of this read!  

Water for Elephants

I am sorry for the delay, but my first post was deleted before I had the chance to publish it.

I read the book almost a year ago and have not had the chance to review it. However, I do remember liking it quite a bit. I appreciated the details the author included about the circus and how wonderfully she brought it to life. However, I did not feel the same way about the book's character development; none of the characters felt real to me. As a result, Jacob and Marlena's relationship seemed almost fraudulent. I wonder if it would have been more realistic if the author included inner dialogue from Marlena. Something along the lines of her vacillating between remaining faithful to her husband or fostering her relationship with Jacob. What do you think?

water for elephants--oh, Rosie

okay, I have not finished the book! so I'm jumping the gun responding but I wanted to post something before we moved to the next book selection. Look, I'm half way through and I'm not sure I will make it to the end. the only character I care about is Rosie. Jacob is a twit. Marlena has no depth and August is you basic run of the mill bully. and, I agree with Lindsey, if I have to spend anymore time with the cranky old Jacob, I might hurt myself. okay, all kidding aside...the title of the book is "water for elephants," so why not spend more of the novel focused on Rosie and Jacob or Marlena saving her from a life of abuse. why doesn't Jacob go and grab that hook from August???? I think I'm going to go see the movie and hope for a better outcome. sorry to be such a downer about the book. I hope someone loves it and can make me see what I'm not seeing in the writing. anyone???

Third Book Selection

Time to Pick Book #3

Please cast your vote at the 

very bottom of the page!

Book Choice #1

Amazon Exclusive: Jad Abumrad Reviews The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab, now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Radiolab combines cutting-edge production with a philosophical approach to big ideas in science and beyond, and an inventive method of storytelling. Abumrad has won numerous awards, including a National Headliner Award in Radio and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Journalism Award. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks:

Honestly, I can't imagine a better tale.
A detective story that's at once mythically large and painfully intimate.
Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). All of which is to say: the science end of this story is enough to blow one's mind right out of one's face.
But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? How did she live? How she did die? Did her family know that she'd become, in some sense, immortal, and how did that affect them? These are crucial questions, because science should never forget the people who gave it life. And so, what unfolds is not only a reporting tour de force but also a very entertaining account of Henrietta, her ancestors, her cells and the scientists who grew them.
The book ultimately channels its journey of discovery though Henrietta's youngest daughter, Deborah, who never knew her mother, and who dreamt of one day being a scientist.
As Deborah Lacks and Skloot search for answers, we're bounced effortlessly from the tiny tobacco-farming Virginia hamlet of Henrietta's childhood to modern-day Baltimore, where Henrietta's family remains. Along the way, a series of unforgettable juxtapositions: cell culturing bumps into faith healings, cutting edge medicine collides with the dark truth that Henrietta's family can't afford the health insurance to care for diseases their mother's cells have helped to cure.
Rebecca Skloot tells the story with great sensitivity, urgency and, in the end, damn fine writing. I highly recommend this book. --Jad Abumrad

Book Choice #2

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2010: Even if this weren't her first novel, Julie Orringer's Invisible Bridge would be a marvelous achievement. Orringer possesses a rare talent that makes a 600-page story--which, we know, must descend into war and genocide--feel rivetingly readable, even at its grimmest. Building vivid worlds in effortless phrases, she immerses us in 1930s Budapest just as a young Hungarian Jew, Andras Lévi, departs for the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris. He hones his talent for design, works backstage in a theater, and allies with other Jewish students in defiance of rising Nazi influence. And then he meets Klara, a captivating Hungarian ballet instructor nine years his senior with a painful past and a willful teenage daughter. Against Klara's better judgment, love engulfs them, drowning out the rumblings of war for a time. But inevitably, Nazi aggression drives them back to Hungary, where life for the Jews goes from hardship to horror. As in Dr. Zhivago, these lovers can't escape history's merciless machinery, but love gives them the courage to endure. --Mari Malcolm

Book Choice #3

From the celebrated twenty-nine-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves ("How I wish these were my own words, instead of the breakneck demon writer Karen Russell's . . . Run for your life. This girl is on fire."Los Angeles Times Book Review) comes a blazingly original debut novel that takes us back to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine.

The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly #1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety-eight gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief.

Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family's struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking. An arrestingly beautiful and inventive work from a vibrant new voice in fiction.   -Bookmovement.com

Book Choice #4

Amazon Best of the Month, February 2011: It all begins with a lost manuscript, a reluctant witch, and 1,500-year-old vampire. Dr. Diana Bishop has a really good reason for refusing to do magic: she is a direct descendant of the first woman executed in the Salem Witch Trials, and her parents cautioned her be discreet about her talents before they were murdered, presumably for having "too much power." So it is purely by accident that Diana unlocks an enchanted long-lost manuscript (a book that all manner of supernatural creatures believe to hold the story of all origins and the secret of immortality) at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and finds herself in a race to prevent an interspecies war. A sparkling debut written by a historian and self-proclaimed oenophile, A Discovery of Witches is heady mix of history and magic, mythology and love (cue the aforementioned vampire!), making for a luxurious, intoxicating, one-sitting read. --Daphne Durham

All reviews are from amazon.com or bookmovement.com

Thank you to everyone who suggested a book.  I can't wait to start reading our next selection!