It is difficult to capture the theme of this book as there is none. Murakami writes a journal while training for a marathon. In this process he talks about life as a novelist, life as a runner and life as a person who is living it. Sometimes he takes you running. You are there alongside him when he runs mile after mile next to rivers while being passed by college runners and 70 year old ladies. He will build you up on the run, let […]
Who wants to live forever?
In 1951 Henrietta Lacks died from aggressive cervical cancer. She left behind a husband and four young children. She also left behind a sample of cancerous tissue that did what very little other human tissue had ever done before, it lived. Her tissue survived and reproduced, providing a unlimited source of human cells for experimentation. You can imagine the breadth of research possibilities that became possible when this cell line – called HeLa – originated at Johns Hopkins. But the Lacks family couldn’t. They were […]
You’ll never take your sanity for granted again
Many thanks to Rachel. S., whose review inspired me to read this book. I saw a neurologist once. I was feeling increasingly confused, forgetful, and mentally disheveled. I would find myself driving on the freeway and suddenly not know where I was or where I was going. I would walk into a co-worker’s office only to forget why I was there. I’d read a book or watch a movie and not remember what it was about. The neurologist gave me a handful of tests, during […]
Who Wants to Live Forever?
I first saw this book at a digital library last year and it seemed interesting. Recently, a friend of mine who is studying genetic counseling, recommended it and that bumped it up the queue. I knew very little of the premise before starting the book. I love that the author used a two-fold approach, writing the biographies of both Henrietta Lacks and her cells. It seems that the cells would easily be the star of the book but the Lacks family is incredibly interesting in […]
Our house is a very, very fine house
This book came highly recommended by a psychologist friend of mine. While it is fiction, it gives a very realistic look into the lives of a family affected by autism. Told in the first person, you get an intimate view of how autism feels. Livvie Owen is 14, and she has two sisters, one older, one younger, and a mom & dad. They’ve moved multiple times, a result of both life circumstances–they live in a dying small town–and Livvie’s disruptive behavior, which landlords find hard […]
No dieting? For true?
I’ve been on lots of diets, and have made many attempts to change up my eating to try to lose (or keep off) weight. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been reading more nutrition books (like last year’s “Good Calories, Bad Calories”) as well as a lot of articles and blogs about Fat Acceptance and Healthy At Every Size. The later repeatedly points out both how society has created all kinds of fucked up issues with food, and how in the US and other […]