From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

Start date: June 1, 2017

Finish date: June 30, 2017

Discussion: Book Club 2017

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Book Club 2017

May 2017 - Hidden Life of Trees
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last updated Nov 17, 2022 06:26AM

April 2017 - Reality is Not What It Seems
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last updated Mar 18, 2021 04:12PM

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What Members Thought

May 04, 2017 David Rubenstein rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, paleontology, biology, memoirs

Hope Jahren is a paleo-botanist. She studies growing plants as well as ancient ones. She has been working as a scientist her entire life, and her dedication to the profession shines through every single page of this book.

Chapters about her own life alternate with chapters about botany. At first, this is a bit disconcerting, as the alternating chapters have little to do with each other. It is like reading two books at once, with their chapters intermingled. In addition, there seems to be very lit Hope Jahren is a paleo-botanist. She studies growing plants as well as ancient ones. She has been working as a scientist her entire life, and her dedication to the profession shines through every single page of this book.

Chapters about her own life alternate with chapters about botany. At first, this is a bit disconcerting, as the alternating chapters have little to do with each other. It is like reading two books at once, with their chapters intermingled. In addition, there seems to be very little coherence among the chapters about either subject.

But somehow, the scheme seems to work. The chapters about Jahren's life are interesting, while those about botany are fascinating.

Hope Jahren did not have it easy growing up. Her academic career was difficult, to say the least. She goes into some detail about how the scientific establishment disregarded her because she was new to the field and her research tended to oppose the current thinking. But more than that, the establishment disregarded her because of sexism. She was a woman, and that was just about unheard of. It was pathetic when the administrator banned her from entering her own lab building when she was pregnant; she was probably the first--and maybe the last--pregnant woman ever to enter the lab building at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The book is also about a remarkable friendship between Jahren and her lab partner and best friend, Bill. They are like fraternal brother and sister. The depth of their friendship seems limitless. Bill's crazy sense of humor, his out-of-the-ballpark witticisms, and their deep caring for each other is simply remarkable. It is a testament to both of them, as Bill has some deep problems that are not quite asserted, while Jahren is manic depressive.

This book deals with all the problems of a young woman who becomes an academic scientist. It describes the difficulties in getting research grants, and for some reason, the story ignores Jahren's scientific triumphs. I am not sure why; perhaps it is modesty. Jahren and Bill put in incredibly long hours, so it is not like they were given anything for free. Their academic awards were definitely earned. But you won't read about these things in the book; you need to look outside the book to learn about their true scientific accomplishments. This seems to be the biggest question I have after reading this book; what exactly were their discoveries, and why is the scientific acclaim not even hinted at in the book? ...more

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Jun 16, 2016 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: science

Reading Hope Jahren's Lab Girl was a bird's eye view of the world of academic science and personal struggle and triumph. Hope's father engenders in her a love of science and the laboratory. He was a community college professor.

As a young girl, Hope knows she does not want to end up working at the meat packing plant like many of her small town classmates will. So she embarks on the road to an academic career. Along the way, she meets Bill who shares her love of adventure and finding answers Bill ...more

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Jun 15, 2016 Jennifer rated it really liked it

Fantastic mix of cool facts about trees (and plants in general) with a story of how, as so often it seems to happen, genius and illness share space in the same brain. Very recommended.

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Jun 15, 2016 Alissa Thorne rated it liked it

Shelves: genre-nonfiction, about-science, genre-memoir-biographical

In trying to tell both her life story, and five readers insights on her work on the science of plants and trees, she does a mediocre job of both. It still had its moments.

Her relationship with her best friend and lab partner is by far the most interesting aspect of the story. My favorite quote from the book:

"...that no matter what our future held, my first task would always be to kick a hole in the world and make a space for him where he could safely be his eccentric self."

A note on the audiob ...more

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Feb 08, 2021 Mitchell Friedman rated it it was amazing

Shelves: published-2016, library, biography, ebook, nonfiction, five-star, biology, autobiography

Brilliant. Quirky. Odd. Beautiful. This is not a typical autobiography. And not always a comfortable read. I would have thought that by the time the author was becoming a scientist it was getting easier to be a woman and a scientist in the United States - apparently not. In this book we see doubts and mental illness and biology and trees. And road trips and teaching. The author was in Atlanta when I was in Atlanta and at Ga Tech just a bit after I wasn't there - the sections in Georgia definitel ...more

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