Hennepin County Library hardcover 282 pages
genre: non-fiction, biography
This book is amazing, but a somewhat challenging read! I'd love to go hear the author speak. She uses language beautifully and made her love of science so accessible. That said, I'm not sure I would purchase this book for a high school (much less a middle school) collection. I will, however, recommend it to my friend Mary for her daughter-in-law.
Page 22 - I love that as she talks about the financial challenges of being a research scientist, she includes this sentence: "If you're reading this, and you wish to support us, please give me a call. It would be insane of me not to include that sentence." I love how down-to-earth she seems!
Page 24 - "No writer in the world agonizes over words the way a scientist does." I love her examples and her attention to the nuances of words and their meaning!
Page 25 - Bill is such a huge part of her career and identity. I love how their relationship was such a powerful force in both their lives. "We made eye contact and recognized fifteen years of our shared history reflected back in each other's eyes. I nodded my acknowledgment, and as I was still struggling to find the right words to thank him, Bill turned and walked out of my office. He is strong where I am weak, and so together we make one complete person . . . "
Page 29 - "Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life."
Page 49 - When she worked in the pharmacy as an undergrad and had to deliver meds to the psych ward: "But once inside I found it to be the slowest-moving place on Earth, and I saw that these patients were unique only in that time had stopped inside their wounds, which were seemingly never to heal. The pain was so thick and palpable in the psych ward that a visitor could breathe it like the heavy humidity of summer air, and I soon realized that the challenge would not be to defend myself from patients, but to defend myself against my own increasing indifference toward them."
Page 75 - "That whole summer in Colorado was a data-gathering bust, but it taught me the most important thing I know about science: that experiments are not about getting the world to do what you want it to do." I love that she can take an experience that was not a success and find the lesson in it.
Page 117 - When they take a trip to "Monkey Jungle" with some undergrads, this scene made me laugh! "The fascination between Bill and the monkey was so complete that it was as if the rest of the world didn't exist. . . . Bill finally stated, without redirecting his stare, 'It's like looking in a f****** mirror.' I doubled over into a series of helpless guffaws that eventually progressed into a sort of prayer for relief."
Page 135 - Her description of ". . . The Getting Tree, and it was about an arboreal parent figure that slowly cannibalized its offspring because of its progressive and oblivious greed." As someone who strongly disliked Silverstein's The Giving Tree even though it was lionized in my childhood, I found this section incredibly amusing!
Page 140 - I marked this to share with my daughter-in-law to be, who just graduated from vet school as a DVM. It's a scene where one of their former assistants got an internship at the Miami zoo. This was incredibly funny and somewhat sick . . . but I think Mari might find it amusing.
Page 214 - When she is pregnant and cannot take medication for her manic depression . . . how very frightening! What courage for her to share this. "I beg the doctors and nurses to tell me why, why, why this is happening to me, and they do not answer." I had also marked page 144 (to represent the entire chapter) . . . "Full-blown mania lets you see the other side of death" is how the chapter begins. I didn't really understand what was going on in this chapter. It kind of felt out of left field. Then at the end, she writes "But that particular day of health and healing is still many years distant within my story, so let's go back to 1998 in Atlanta and I'll keep describing how the world spins when mania is as strong and ever-present as gravity." She is an amazing woman and I'm glad she wrote this book!
Page 218 - "Then I catch myself and listlessly wonder again for which of my sins I am being punished. I am sick to death of this wound that will not close; of how my babyish heart mistakes any simple kindness from a woman for a breadcrumb trail leading to the soft love of a mother or the fond approval of a grandmother." This made me once again want to know so much more about the author's childhood and her mother . . . and how old she was when her father died . . . because I can't imagine he was still alive at this point in her life. And her older brothers - did they stay in contact?
Page 226 - ". . . and the smile that she gives me is like a hundred-dollar bill that I can stuff into the pocket of my heart." Jahren is a wonderful author! I love how she uses language!
Page 228 - "I decide that I will not be this child's mother. Instead, I will be his father. It is something I know how to do and something that will come naturally to me." Again, this really made me want to know so much more about her childhood and her mother's treatment of her. And it made me sad.
Page 245 - Her friendship with Bill and her attachment to him were so powerful! I love that aspect of her story. "I wanted to tell Bill that he wasn't alone and that he never would be. I wanted to make him know that he had friends in this world tied to him by something stronger than blood, ties that could never fade or dissolve. That he would never be hungry or cold or motherless while I still drew breath. That he didn't need two hands, or a street address, or clean lungs, or social grace, or a happy disposition to be precious and irreplaceable. 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." This is such a beautiful paragraph about friendship!
Page 255 - I love books that teach me! "And today, just three monocot species - rice, corn, and wheat - provide the ultimate sustenance for seven billion people." I vaguely remember learning about monocot and dicot at one point in my life . . . but she explained this in a way that made such complete sense!
Page 256 - "That I have been given one chance to be someone's mother. Yes, I am his mother - I can say that now - for only after I released myself from my own expectations of motherhood did I realize that they were something I could fulfill." I loved this! But then, I love being a mother.
Page 267 - She is one of those people who honestly doesn't seem to need sleep. After a full day of work, parenting, and home life, she heads back to work at night?!?!? When does she sleep?! I love that she said the Lord's Prayer and asked the dog to keep an eye on her son. I love that she and her husband seem to be so incredibly well-matched. But going back to work at 10:30 p.m.??? I cannot fathom this!
Page 277 - This entire paragraph! The contradictions in people's expectations for her and attitudes toward her. I'm so glad she wrote this book. What an amazing woman!
I'm so glad I read this book, but I'm not sure how many students - middle school or high school - would enjoy it. One person at Litwits said her eighth grade daughter loved it! That surprised me, but also pleased me. It is a book I will recommend to a dear friend whose daughter-in-law is a geologist. Even though Jahren is a botanist, she does plenty with soil science. This was a worthwhile book to read! I love how she made observations about plants and related them to human lives and experiences. There were times I felt that she anthropomorphized the plants she worked with (especially trees), but that's her prerogative.
No comments:
Post a Comment