Science Book Chat discussion

At Eva's suggestion I've started a new thread; I'll try not to let it turn into a Review, but I'm up at the hour when I like to Write, so we'll see what happens.

At the suggestion of a trusted friend (otherwise the title might have put me off), I grabbed this book from the library and, in a fever of new-year ambition and with the help of a bank holiday, read it in 2 days, and probably could have done it in 1 if I hadn't decided to do some regular work on NYD.

I'm grateful for Lab Girl, and Hope Jahren, for a number of reasons. First is that I keep toying with the idea of writing a memoir and am not sure where to start, and I appreciate the way she interleaves stories of her own life with musings on plant and environmental science. Second, she alludes to but is not ruled by both her mental health struggles and the reality of sexism in academia; they don't define her, nor do her relationships. Finally, in Bill, she has a righthand man, who has stuck with her all the way without needing to compete with her. How many working women can say that, let alone scientists?

Right, I'll stop there for now. Lynn, Eva, any male readers? I'll try to loop in Sara as well, aware that this technology may not do all I would like it to, e.g. tag.

I haven't yet finished this book - I'm about 3/4 of the way through. There are some things I do appreciate about Lab Girl, and I like the alternating chapter format, though I wish Dr. Jahren put herself more into the chapters on plant physiology - it's not clear anywhere in the book exactly what it is she researches or what parts of the major discoveries she describes that she can take some credit for.

On the one hand, I do appreciate her descriptions of the difficulties of being a young, female researcher in an academic field dominated by men, but on the other hand, she approaches these topics, and the topic of her mental health issues in a "sideways" kind of way - never head on. Her descriptions of the completely mad field trips where nobody gets any sleep, there is hardly any food, and poor decisions are made, brought back really bad memories for me from my time as an advanced undergrad and grad student. Experiences like this made me feel as though I was being hazed, and along with the sexism and rejection of my unorthodox ideas, led me to leave the academic rat-race.

I definitely hand it to Dr. Jahren for sticking it out and becoming a successful scientist and memoirist, but if I was a young scientist starting out again, this book would not in any way encourage ME to stick with it :-(

I loved this book, Her depiction of the pursuit of science (although quirky Sara) was fascinating to me. I learned things I did not know such as the fact that trees communicate with one another, I found her critique of academia with tales of sexism, cut throat competition, and the never ending search for money very accurate. In addition, Finally, I was impressed with her open discussion about my bipolar disease. It is true that she approached the topic "sideways" as Sara indicates but it takes courage, We need more people to stand up and claim their mental illness if we are ever going to tackle the problem.