BOOK REPORTS

                                                  In 1981.  Courtship time.  I was lucky.

I am in Cottage Grove, Oregon, drinking moderately priced red wine (for me “moderate” starts at $4.99), in an okay motel.  The name "Cottage Grove" suggests Mayberry, or perhaps something out of the Little House on the Prairie - but it isn’t.  Last time I was through here I saw a bumper sticker that read, “If it’s Tourist Season How Come We Can’t Shoot ‘Em?” Tonight  I was told not to leave my car unlocked, even for a few minutes.  I’m using the dead bolt.

I have been reading serious stuff lately, and perhaps it would be helpful if I made suggestions.  Previously I wrote that “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” was well worth the considerable effort needed to digest it.  I have read it twice, and I may go at it again in a year or so.  It is very hard work in places, but worth it.

Several weeks ago I finished “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, by Rebecca Skloot.  This was a huge best-seller.  The NY times book reviewers positively dissolved it in drool.   It won some awards.  So --- why don’t  I like it?  Well, probably because it is more a description of a dysfunctional family and an (inexplicit) condemnation of the current state of education, than it is about science.  It is really two books:  the first about Ms. Lacks cancer and the preservation of her cancer cells, and the second about the painful way in which her family reacted to her cells’ immortality.  The first could have explained why Henrietta’s cells could survive and multiply while other similarly nasty cancer cells croaked in the test tube -  but it doesn’t.  I would have enjoyed hearing about how her cells were used, what they helped discover, why they are an almost universal contaminant in biolabs everywhere, etc., etc.  Probably most people weren’t looking for science, but I was.

The second book was about Henrietta’s family, and I found it hard to read.  Suffice it to say that, if our educational leaders are unable to bring even laggards into the 19^th century, let alone the 20^th and 21^st, they should look for another line of work.

The last chapter of Ms. Skloot’s book is, however, worth reading, because it helps to explain the modern obsession with privacy.

Right now I am reading an excellent book about the 1918 flue epidemic.  It has lots  of science, as well as some interesting history.  More about it later.