This memoir from Dr. Jennifer Doudna, Nobel prize-winning co-discoverer of the CRISPR gene editing system, is sure to become a science classic. Like TThis memoir from Dr. Jennifer Doudna, Nobel prize-winning co-discoverer of the CRISPR gene editing system, is sure to become a science classic. Like The Double Helix by James Watson, it's a chance to hear about an incredible scientific discovery from one of the scientists involved.
Despite the value of this first-person perspective, I must admit that for most readers, I'd recommend Walter Isaacson's new biography of Doudna instead. Since this book was published several years prior to Isaacson's bio, most of this story was also included in his book. I'm sure he used it as a source. Doudna's book was clearly and simply written. It includes slightly more scientific detail than Isaacson's book. However, she spends at least as much time explaining basic biology and is sometimes repetitive. Doudna's book was not quite as engaging as Isaacson's either, which makes sense given that only one of them is a professional author.
I think scientists and non-scientists alike are likely to enjoy the Isaacson book more. If you're interested enough in this story though, these two books made for a great pairing. The difference I found most interesting was that Isaacson clearly identifies Doudna's competitive side. Here, she emphasizes how happy she was to collaborate, never expressing the frustration she must have felt when being scooped. I would probably recommend reading Doudna's book first. I think Isaacson's book will hold up better as a second look at this story. He also covers her more recent work, post her publication of this book. As a scientist doing related work, I'm glad I read both.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey...more
Summary: This was a mix of beautiful/entertaining prose and clear explanations, as enjoyable as it was informative.
This memoir of author Sarah Ramey'sSummary: This was a mix of beautiful/entertaining prose and clear explanations, as enjoyable as it was informative.
This memoir of author Sarah Ramey's experience with a 'mysterious illness' describes her many infuriating and unhelpful encounters with both doctors and alternative medicine practitioners. The callous response she receives from doctors, who regularly disregard clear physical evidence she's sick and suggest a psychological explanation, was horrifying. Unfortunately, it isn't a rare experience. Especially among women, complex diseases of the immune system are on the rise. Many of the women who experience these 'mysterious illnesses' encounter the same disbelief from medical practitioners and friends. In this memoir, Ramey's personal experience therefore provides the reader with insight into a common but rarely discussed experience. She also suggests some helpful approaches to dealing with these illnesses and for contextualizing them that will likely be of use to other people, or those related to other people, experiencing similar health issues.
This was an incredibly well written book and I have almost exclusively positive things to say about it. That said, I'm going to get my one complaint out of the way first...
The author struck me as overly obsessed with stereotypical notions of gender. While she does, briefly, acknowledge that differences between men and women might be biological or social; that nonbinary people exist; and that she's talking about stereotypically feminine and masculine traits; these points didn't receive the emphasis they deserved. She never mentions trans people, which feels like an oversight. I agreed with a number of her points, such as the need to acknowledge that those of us identified female at birth are physically different in some ways from those identified male (immune system, etc). I certainly believe that these illnesses have been given less attention and confused for psychological problems because they primarily afflict women. I'm glad she made these points. I also have a lot of empathy for her desire to fit her suffering into a meaningful narrative, as in her extensive discussion of "the heroine's journey". However, I think the topic of gender could have been handled more sensitively and accurately. I also think her emphasis on gender might alienate men who share this suite of symptoms - whose existence she totally ignores until well into the book. Last but not least, her focus on the demonization of stereotypically female traits and the busy modern world (ie technology) really lets economic stressors off the hook. I suspect wage stagnation is a much bigger modern stressor than twitter, for example!
That aside, I thought this book was very good. The author immediately hooked me with her often humorous take on this painful topic. She tells her story in an engaging way, taking the reader along with her through many false or incomplete epiphanies followed by difficult relapses. She includes enough vivid details that we can see the infuriating reality of how the medical system treats her. Likewise, her symptoms are described in enough detail to expose the misery of what she's going through. The amount of detail didn't ever feel gratuitous. In fact, I think the author probably spared us more of her suffering than she had to. By showing how overwhelming her illness was and how poorly the medical system reacted, she made it possible to understand why people would turn to alternative medicine - even for an extreme skeptic, like me! Humor, pop culture references, and her optimistic personality made this a pleasure to read, despite infuriating or depressing turns in her story.
The structure of the book was also extremely effective. Frequent section breaks gave the book a rapid, gripping pace, despite its length. At times, the breaks also gave the text a fragmented nature that felt like a reflection of the confusion and brain fog the author was experiencing. The shape of the text told the author's story in other ways as well. When she's spiraling into this world of no diagnosis, the text becomes stairs leading down. As she's trying to restore order to her life. the text takes the shape of a list. Her blending of academic ideas with pop culture and thoughtful writing made this feel literary and intellectual. The explanations of complex concepts in health and in medicine were beautifully clear. The way she presented her recommendations, as a framework for action and with caveats that what works for her won't work for everyone, felt like a responsible way to provide people with helpful advice, without making grandiose promises.
Despite my one complaint with this one, I thought it was incredibly well written, an enjoyable read, and full of information that will be valuable to both those who don't know about people suffering from 'mysterious illnesses' and those who are too familiar with the phenomenon. Well deserving of the hype it's received and one that I'm happy to recommend.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey...more
Summary: Thoughtful, funny, moving, informative - this memoir was everything I could have ask for.
While I've been hearing good things about this memoiSummary: Thoughtful, funny, moving, informative - this memoir was everything I could have ask for.
While I've been hearing good things about this memoir for a long time, I have to admit that I put off reading it because I was a little bitter at Trevor Noah for replacing Jon Stewart. I'm happy to admit that I've been wrong! This was a fantastic memoir about the author's childhood, growing up biracial in South Africa at a time when the relationship between his black Xhosa mother and white Swiss father was illegal. I learned a lot and I enjoyed reading it.
The author's sense of humor was a big part of what made this book so good. He was able to talk about some dark times in his life without the story every becoming too depressing. And he was able to show his love and compassion for his mother in some truly moving stories without becoming sappy. I think his consistent tone and sense of humor also helped those two parts of the story become a cohesive whole.
I also appreciate the inserts between chapters detailing the history and laws of South Africa. Even when I'm reading a memoir, I like to learn something from my nonfiction. The author's story alone would have taught me a lot, because his experiences of class, race, and culture are so different from my own. I wanted more of a feel for South Africa as well though, so I enjoyed the context provided by the historical sections.
This felt like an easy, enjoyable read, but there was also a lot of depth to it. I'd recommend it to nearly anyone, because it's both so informative and so entertaining. I don't know why I've put off reading this for so long, but now I'm happy to second all the hype I've been hearing. If you want to learn about the world or just enjoy a good memoir, this is one you shouldn't miss.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey...more
Summary: This was an informative and personal look at the lives of the most privileged students in North Korea.
Like Double Happiness, this was theSummary: This was an informative and personal look at the lives of the most privileged students in North Korea.
Like Double Happiness, this was the story of an American English teacher abroad and one of the high points of the book was getting to know the students. Like the teacher in Double Happiness, author Suki Kim also clearly felt a lot of affection for her students. I'm sure that contributed to their strong characterizations. Since im was teaching in North Korea, it was also particularly fascinating to get a glimpse of her students' knowledge base and their perspective on the world. The similarity between these books largely ends there though, to the benefit of this book. Although both authors describe their experiences in the countries they visit, Kim's time studying North Korea enabled her to provide a lot more context for her experiences. She is also able to draw on her family's history in South Korea, fleeing an attack during the Korean War, to give a personal look at the history of both countries.
Even in this book, I didn't initially enjoy the personal sections as much as those about North Korea and the students. As the story progressed, though, Kim's experience living with the restrictions in place in North Korea became an interesting window into that world. Her experience of living there was surely much different from that of someone who grew up there, but it was still fascinating to hear about how it felt to live in such oppressive circumstances. She also faced challenging ethical dilemmas every day as she struggled to achieve a balance of honesty and safety when answering her students questions. This look at the closed society of North Korea was absorbing and informative. It was a good blend of the personal and political. I'd definitely recommend it as one of a few opportunities to learn more about North Korea.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey...more
Summary: The sense of humor in this book left me with mixed feelings, but the personal stories and fun facts were great.
This memoir of hiking the AppaSummary: The sense of humor in this book left me with mixed feelings, but the personal stories and fun facts were great.
This memoir of hiking the Appalachian Trail is the second book I've read by author and novice hiker Bill Bryson. I tried his A Short History of Nearly Everything and found his dad joke-y humor wasn't enough to carry me through a long book that rehashed natural history I'm already familiar with. This memoir, which included details of his personal experience and new-to-me info, was much more enjoyable. I'm glad I finally gave his books a second chance.
The humor in these books is one of their strong points. It reminded me of Mary Roach a bit, especially in the author's impressive ability to constantly be funny. Unlike Roach, though, his humor was sometimes dated, including some fat-phobic jokes that should really be laid to rest. This wasn't entirely out of line with his other humor, which sometimes felt a little cruel and at others expense. There were also a couple of graphic potty-humor moments that felt jarringly out of place. A lot of the humor was also self-deprecating though and highlighted both the fears and joys of a novice hiker, which I found very relatable. This was more common than the humor that didn't work for me.
The author also did a great job of blending his personal experiences with entertaining anecdotes, fun facts, and sobering information about loss of natural areas in the United States. In fact, one of my main takeaways from this book was that the National Park Service seems to exist to facilitate logging more than to protect our forests. At least as of publication of this book in 1997, significantly more effort was being spent building roads than studying disappearing wildlife. I enjoyed Bryson's outsider perspective on how Americans interact with nature and at least mostly agreed with him. His own personal growth and his relationship with hiking buddy Stephan Katz were also particularly enjoyable. Although this is a bit dated, I'd recommend it to anyone who's willing to skim through that to enjoy a funny personal take on a beginner's experience of the Appalachian Trail.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey...more
Ruminating. Obsessive. Anxious. These are the words that come to mind if I try to capture Maybe Esther in just one word. There are obvious subject matRuminating. Obsessive. Anxious. These are the words that come to mind if I try to capture Maybe Esther in just one word. There are obvious subject matter words I could reach for - Holocaust, family, WWII. These feel generic to me though. The unique part of this book is the style and tone in which it's told. It made me feel as though I had joined the author in a claustrophobic room, pacing around her memories of her ancestors and the horrors inflicted on them during WWII.
The book is written as collection of very short vignettes. Initially, this felt quite disjointed. I struggled to follow exactly what the author was telling me about her childhood due to the poetic language she used. The writing was gorgeous. I frequently had to pause and spend time with the poignant sentiments she expressed in beautiful prose. Even early on, when I struggled at the paragraph level, the author's sentence level-writing stopped my in my tracks.
The book does become more cohesive as it goes. Vignettes are more likely to occur linearly in time. They're also grouped by topic, mostly about specific family members. The breaking up of the narrative into pieces also felt appropriate as I began to understand the impact of family trauma on the author. Some of her family were Jewish and some are Jewish again. Others discarded that identity to survive. Some branches of the family forgot other politically inconvenient branches, first intentionally and then habitually. All of this leave the author was a shattered sense of identity. She seems uncertain about both her nationality and her Jewishness. And in this book, she desperately pursues the truth of who here ancestors were and what they experienced.
This book was a little too surreal and experimental to be my very favorite kind of read. I loved the sentence-level writing though and thought the author told an important story from an interesting perspective. I learned a lot and I enjoyed doing it, despite the difficult subject matter. Definitely one I'd recommend to people who like more literary nonfiction; who want a unique take on WWII; or who are interested in ideas about the unreliability of memory.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey...more
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