Best Biological Sciences

Now an HBO® Film starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010 : From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab , now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot 's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? (1999)Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930s.Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.The Lacks family in 2009.

The tales of a naturalist and his family, who left England for the Greek island of Corfu—where they interacted with fascinating locals of both human and animal varieties—these memoirs have become beloved bestsellers and inspired the delightful series that aired on PBS television. Included in this three-book collection are: My Family and Other Animals : Ten-year-old Gerald Durrell arrives on sun-drenched Corfu with this family and pursues his interest in natural history, making friends with the island’s fauna—from toads and tortoises to scorpions and geckos—while reveling in the joyous chaos of growing up in an unconventional household. Praise for the Corfu Trilogy “A most enjoyable idyll.” — The New Yorker on My Family and Other Animals “A lot of frolic, fun, and charming ribaldry, as well as the warm feeling of having been transported to a lovely spot where worry is unknown and anything is believable.” — The New York Times on My Family and Other Animals “A delightful book full of simple, well-known things: cicadas in the olive groves, lamp fishing at night, the complexities of fish and animals—but above all, childhood molded by these things and intimately recalled in middle age.” — The New York Times Book Review on Birds, Beasts and Relatives.

Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its genetic inheritance. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2017 "Sapolsky has created an immensely readable, often hilarious romp through the multiple worlds of psychology, primatology, sociology and neurobiology to explain why we behave the way we do. “[Sapolskly’s] new book is his magnum opus, but is also strikingly different from his earlier work, veering sharply toward hard science as it looms myriad strands of his ruminations on human behavior. The familiar, enchanting Sapolsky tropes are here—his warm, witty voice, a sleight of hand that unfolds the mysteries of cognition—but Behave keeps the bar high. It is a magnificent culmination of integrative thinking, on par with similar authoritative works, such as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Stee l and Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature .” — Michael Shermer, American Scholar. They should put Behave in hotel rooms instead of the Bible: the world would be a much better, wiser place” — Kate Fox, author of Watching the English. Behave ranges at great length from moral philosophy to social science, genetics to Sapolsky’s home turf of neurons and hormones—but all of it is aimed squarely at the question of why humans are so awful to each other, and whether the condition is terminal.” — Vulture. You feel like a lucky auditor in a fast-paced undergraduate course, where the implications of fascinating scientific findings are illuminated through topical stories and pop-culture allusions.” — Nature “Sapolsky’s book shows in exquisite detail how culture, context and learning shape everything our genes, brains, hormones and neurons do.” — Times Literary Supplement. “[Sapolsky] does an excellent job of bringing together the expansive literature of thousands of fascinating studies with clarity and humor….A tour-de-force.” — Library Journal (starred review). “Sapolsky finds not the high moral drama of the soul choosing good or evil but rather down-to-earth biology….a remarkably encyclopedic survey of the sciences illuminating human conduct.” — Booklist (starred review). “Read Robert Sapolsky’s marvelous book Behave and you’ll never again be surprised by the range and depth of our own bad behavior. —David Eagleman, PhD, neuroscientist at Stanford, author, presenter of PBS's The Brain " Behave is a beautifully crafted work about the biology of morality. Its depth and breadth of scholarship are amazing, building on Sapolsky’s own research and his vast knowledge of the neurobiology, genetic, and behavioral literature. For instance, Behave includes fair evaluations of complex debates (like over sociobiology) that I was involved in, and tackles controversial questions such as whether our hunter-gatherer ancestors warred on each other. All this is done brilliantly with a light and funny touch that shows why Sapolsky is recognized as one of the greatest teachers in science today.” —Paul R. Ehrlich, author of Human Natures.

A New York Times bestseller. Named one of The Economist ’s Books of the Year 2014. Named one of The Wall Street Journal ’s Top Ten Best Nonfiction Books of 2014 Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014. Forbes’s Most Memorable Healthcare Book of 2014. Named a Best Food Book of 2014 by Mother Jones Named one of Library Journal 's Best Books of 2014 In The Big Fat Surprise, investigative journalist Nina Teicholz reveals the unthinkable: that everything we thought we knew about dietary fat is wrong. This startling history demonstrates how nutrition science has gotten it so wrong: how overzealous researchers, through a combination of ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus, have allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma. "Teicholz may be the Rachel Carson of the nutrition movement..." (Leah Binder Forbes). “Solid, well-reported science… Like a bloodhound, Teicholz tracks the process by which a hypothesis morphs into truth without the benefit of supporting data.” (Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)). "Nina Teicholz reveals the disturbing underpinnings of the profoundly misguided dietary recommendations that have permeated modern society, culminating in our overall health decline. (David Perlmutter, MD, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs ). "A page-turner story of science gone wrong: what Gary Taubes did in Good Calories, Bad Calories for debunking the connection between fat consumption and obesity, Nina Teicholz now does in Big Fat Surprise for the purported connection between fat and heart disease. Misstep by misstep, blunder by blunder, Ms. Teicholz recounts the statistical cherry-picking, political finagling, and pseudoscientific bullying that brought us to yet another of the biggest mistakes in health and nutrition, the low-fat and low-saturated fat myth for heart health." (Christiane Northrup, M.D., ob/gyn physician and author of the New York Times bestseller Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom ). "This meticulously researched book thoroughly dismantles the current dietary dogma that fat--particularly saturated fat--is bad for us. (Michael R. Eades, M.D., author of the New York Times bestseller Protein Power ). " The Big Fat Surprise delivers on its title, exposing the shocking news that much of what “everybody knows” about a healthy diet is in fact all wrong. [ The Big Fat Surprise ] is a lacerating indictment of Big Public Health . (Alice Waters ). "Nina Teicholz's The Big Fat Surprise is essential reading on the saturated fat debate . (Stuart Spencer The Lancet). "This book should be read by every nutritional science professional...All scientists should read it as an example of how limited science can become federal policy....well-research and clearly written....Teicholz compiled a historical treatise on how scientific belief (vs. evidence), nongovernment organizations, food manufacturers, government agencies, and moneyed interests promised more than they could deliver and, in the process, quite possibly contributed to the current world-wide obesity epidemic."

The tales of a naturalist and his family, who left England for the Greek island of Corfu—where they interacted with fascinating locals of both human and animal varieties—these memoirs have become beloved bestsellers and inspired the delightful series that aired on PBS television. Included in this three-book collection are: My Family and Other Animals : Ten-year-old Gerald Durrell arrives on sun-drenched Corfu with this family and pursues his interest in natural history, making friends with the island’s fauna—from toads and tortoises to scorpions and geckos—while reveling in the joyous chaos of growing up in an unconventional household. Praise for the Corfu Trilogy “A most enjoyable idyll.” — The New Yorker on My Family and Other Animals “A lot of frolic, fun, and charming ribaldry, as well as the warm feeling of having been transported to a lovely spot where worry is unknown and anything is believable.” — The New York Times on My Family and Other Animals “A delightful book full of simple, well-known things: cicadas in the olive groves, lamp fishing at night, the complexities of fish and animals—but above all, childhood molded by these things and intimately recalled in middle age.” — The New York Times Book Review on Birds, Beasts and Relatives.

Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without her knowledge - became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Balancing the beauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the stuff our bodies are made of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul and story of a real woman, whose cells live on today in all four corners of the world. "An extraordinary mix of memoir and science reveals the story of how one woman's cells have saved countless lives" Daily Telegraph. Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010 : From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab , now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot 's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? (1999)Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930s.Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.The Lacks family in 2009.

Now an HBO® Film starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010 : From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab , now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot 's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? (1999)Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930s.Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.The Lacks family in 2009.

New York Times Bestseller and an Amazon Best Science Book of 2015 , Life on the Edge alters our understanding of our world's fundamental dynamics through the use of quantum mechanics Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how did it come to be? Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, each chapter in Life on the Edge illustrates one of life's puzzles: How do migrating birds know where to go? Praise for New York Times Bestseller Life on the Edge "Remarkable... Life on the Edge is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that combines solid science, reasonable extrapolation from the known into the unknown, and plausible speculation to give an accessible overview of a revolutionary transformation in our understanding of the living world." — Wall Street Journal "The elemental provocation of the book lies in the authors' ability to make the complex conceivable... McFadden and Al-Khalili give sure footing to the anything-goes bafflement of quantum theory." — The Independent ; “Books of the Year”. "A really original science book about a new field of research ... — Financial Times , “Books of the Year”. "Coherence is just one of the complex phenomena that Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden set out to teach the reader. — The Sunday Telegraph “The great virtue of this book is its thesis – it sets out a clear and enthusiastic argument for the importance of quantum biology.”. — New Scientist " Life on the Edge gives the clearest account I've ever read of the possible ways in which the very small events of the quantum world can affect the world of middle-sized living creatures like us.

**From the author of the phenomenal million copy bestseller Sapiens **. **The Sunday Times # 1 bestseller**. While Sapiens looked back at our evolutionary development, this new book examines where we might be headed ( Homo Deus is subtitled “A Brief History of Tomorrow”). His innovative new book blends science, history and philosophy to explore the future of humanity in the face of artificial intelligence and examine whether our species will be rendered completely redundant.” – Cambridge Network “Spellbinding. “ It’s a chilling prospect, but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of Sapiens .” – The Guardian. “Nominally a historian, Harari is in fact an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines — including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology — to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading.” – Evening Standard. He’s opened a portal for us to contemplate on what kind of relationships we are forming with our data-crunching machines and whether ‘right’ must be determined by empirical evidence or good old ‘gut instinct.’” – The Hindu “[Harari’s] propositions are well-developed, drawing upon a combination of science, philosophy and history. While the book offers a rather pessimistic and even nihilistic view of man’s future, it is written with wit and style and makes compelling reading.” – iNews.

In The Hidden Life of Trees , Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. "The matter-of-fact Mr. Wohlleben has delighted readers and talk-show audiences alike with the news — long known to biologists — that trees in the forest are social beings." — Sally McGrane, The New York Times “This fascinating book will intrigue readers who love a walk through the woods”— Publishers Weekly. "Soon after we begin to recognize trees for what they are — gigantic beings thriving against incredible odds for hundreds of years — we naturally come to ask, 'How do they do it?'. "Wohlleben’s book is at once romantic and scientific, beautifully articulating his personal relationship with the trees he has dedicated his life to. "With colorful and engaging descriptions of little-known phenomena in our natural world, Wohlleben helps readers appreciate the exciting processes at work in the forests around them." Peter Wohlleben spent over twenty years working for the forestry commission in Germany before leaving to put his ideas of ecology into practice.

First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite," A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land. --Professor Marshall Spector, State University of New York "A fine book--Robert Finch's introduction enhances a classic text." --Burton E. Vaughan, Ph.D., Washington State University Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) began his professional career in 1909 when he joined the U.S. Forest Service.

In Darwin’s Doubt , Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life—a mystery that has intensified, not only because the expected ancestors of these animals have not been found, but because scientists have learned more about what it takes to construct an animal. ''It's hard for us paleontologists to admit that neo-Darwinian explanations for the Cambrian explosion have failed miserably....Meyer describes the dimensions of the problem with clarity and precision. '' Darwin's Doubt is by far the most up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive review of the evidence from all relevant scientific fields that I have encountered in more than forty years of studying the Cambrian explosion.''. --Dr. Russell Carlson, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Georgia and technical director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. --Dr. Norman C. Nevin OBE, BSc, MD, FRCPath, FFPH, FRCPE, FRCP; Professor Emeritus in Medical Genetics, Queen's University, Belfast. ''Stephen Meyer's new book, Darwin's Doubt , is a fascinating and rigorous study demonstrating not only that biologists and paleontologists do not have an adequate explanation for the Cambrian Explosion, but that there is an alternative view that makes more sense.''. ''Meyer is a talented writer with an easygoing voice who has blended interesting history with clear explanations in what may come to be seen as a classic presentation of this most fundamental of all debates.''. In what is known today as the "Cambrian explosion," many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record 530 million years ago without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. A New York Times 2016 Notable Book. National Best Seller. Named one of TIME magazine’s "100 Most Influential People". An Amazon Top 20 Best Book of 2016. A Washington Post Best Memoir of 2016. A TIME and Entertainment Weekly Best Book of 2016 An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world. Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Somehow she knows me: “the average person [who] cannot imagine himself staring at dirt for longer than the twenty seconds needed to pick up whatever object he just dropped.” And she doesn’t judge. Like life, for instance, and friendship and passion and love, for ideas, for work and for all living beings, including--shocker!--people. A tenured professor at the University of Hawaii, Jahren has built a career and a reputation in science by unearthing secrets hidden in fossilized plant life. Her work has resulted in at least 70 studies in dozens of journals, but it’s also given her a platform to talk about something else: widespread sexual harassment and discrimination in science. On her blog, in op-eds and in her new memoir, Lab Girl, Jahren wields her influence to call out a culture that has caused women to flee the field she so loves. I was drawn in from the start by the clarity and beauty of Jahren’s prose, whether she was examining the inner world of a seed, the ecosystem around the trunk of a tree, or recounting her own inspiring journey. They emerge from her memoir as much more than a bundle of biological processes, but beings with strange, secret lives, supported by astonishingly elegant machinery . In these pages you’ll find a renewed interest in the natural world, and notice things that have been hidden in plain sight. She writes: ‘Love and learning are similar, in that they can never be wasted.’ And neither is time spent reading this book.” —Lucie Green, The Guardian (UK). In [this] behind-the-scenes tour of science, we join her for misadventures and triumphs as she sets up three labs and conducts research in the Canadian Arctic, Ireland, Hawaii, and across the continental United States. Jahren spends the book teaching us that if we just look closely enough, we can see the opal lattice on a hackberry seed, the depths of loyalty in our closest friends, the wonder in a single leaf, and what we ourselves are supposed to become . She’s the type of scientist who cheerfully spends three seasons drilling through Arctic turf; between sessions of hard graft, her lab group takes road trips to see bizarre attractions, or attempts elaborate campfire cuisine. Lab Girl is the acutely personal account of the drive that propels people to the frontier of an academic discipline. Her eloquent rhapsodies about peerless soil samples, willow trees, and the tenacity of a cactus prompt a deeply inquisitive spirit in readers . Peppered with literary references to Genet, Beckett, Dickens and Thoreau, Jahren’s honest prose is insightful, eloquent, and funny, and she has a gift for explaining hard science in the most bewitching way . In the end, it’s easy to see the book as a love note—not just to plants, to science, and to the sweetness of discovery, but also to friendship and loyalty, to journeys big and small, to belonging and becoming.” —Kathleen Yale, Orion. “Jahren writes with such flair that a reviewer is tempted to just move out of the way and quote her; from the prologue on, a reader itches to call out fun facts to innocents nearby. Deft and flecked with humor, Lab Girl is also a hybrid—a scientist’s memoir of a quirky, gritty, fascinating life, punctuated by mesmerizing dispatches on botany . Snow’s two cultures [the sciences and the humanities] gives the book a bright spark, like playing tennis with an intriguing, ambidextrous friend. Her lab partner Bill, a sort of fraternal twin, carries the weight of emotional confederacy in the book . Like Robert Sapolsky’s A Primate’s Memoir or Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk , Lab Girl delivers the zing of a beautiful mind in nature.” —Karen R. Long, Seattle Times * “Sublime, entertaining . With good humor, plenty of science, scattered literary allusions and the occasional sarcastic zinger, Lab Girl is a memoir of a plant research scientist [that] illuminates both the science of the plant world and the ebb and flow of her personal life—her struggles to find professional success, love and family. Jahren emerges as a smart, practical, good-hearted woman who loves her work and also finds joy in her husband, young son and best friend, Bill.”—Bruce Jacobs, Shelf Awareness (starred). A pronounced oddball, a seeker of knowledge, and a trader of sardonic wisecracks, Bill is Jahren’s unfailing, unfussy sidekick; [he’s] never happier than when on the job, savoring the complexities of soil layers or scavenging secondhand equipment for the laboratories the two of them have built together . Jahren captures the ramshackle poetry of this friendship, whose loyalty is so deep and abiding that it forges a great love story, in spite of the utter absence of erotic interest in either party. Winning.” —Laura Miller, Slate “As a young girl growing up in Minnesota, Jahren spent her formative years in the labs of her father, a science teacher at the local community college. It is this literary upbringing fueled by science that heralds Jahren’s memoir as the beginning of a career along the lines of Annie Dillard or Diane Ackerman. In Lab Girl, she constructs her own life story— her struggling years as an undergraduate, the persistent sexist attitude of the scientific community, the constant lack of funds, her growing awareness of her bipolar disorder—with the attention to detail and respect for organic growth that has earned her increased recognition and funding in the later years of her career. Jahren, a geochemist, botanist and geobiologist, has spent the better part of the past two decades studying the secret lives of plants. It is full of pleasing turns of phrase, references to literary figures like Genet and Dickens, and a running botany allusion that punctuates the book’s biographical story. Most of all, it’s deeply personal, following Jahren’s battle with manic depression; a harrowing pregnancy; her unending struggle to secure funding in a quickly drying financial desert; and the loving platonic relationship she shares with her protégé and lab manager, Bill. Jahren’s work has taken her around the world, from the ancient forests of Norway and Denmark to the remote and treeless Arctic, and most recently to the lush gardens of Hawaii. Jahren’s aim is to make the reader appreciate the fascinations of studying flora, to infect us with the same enthusiasm that has driven her ever since she was a child hanging around in her father’s lab, falling hard for the sensuous allures of the slide rule. Jahren’s literary bent renders dense material digestible and lyrical, in fables that parallel personal history. Vladimir Nabokov once observed that ‘a writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.’ The geobiologist Hope Jahren possesses both in spades. Her new memoir is at once a thrilling account of her discovery of her vocation and a gifted teacher’s road map to the secret lives of plants—a book that, at its best, does for botany what Oliver Sacks’s essays did for neurology, what Stephen Jay Gould’s writings did for paleontology . She communicates the electric excitement of discovering something new—something no one ever knew or definitively proved before—and the grunt work involved in conducting studies and experiments: the days and weeks and months of watching and waiting and gathering data, the all-nighters, the repetitions, the detours, both serendipitous and unfruitful . Born and raised in a rural Minnesota town built around a meat-processing plant and defined mostly by its brutal winters and Scandinavian restraint, Jahren assumed that the grim endurance of her Norwegian-immigrant ancestors was her legacy. She did turn out to be tenacious, though not exactly in the way she had pictured: Long hours spent entertaining herself as a child in her physics-teacher father’s work space piqued Jahren’s interest in science, and her housewife mother’s unhappiness propelled her to pursue higher education all the way to a UC Berkeley Ph.D. Today, she’s an internationally renowned geobiologist with three Fulbrights, her own world-class laboratory, and a Wikipedia page longer and starrier than most U.S. senators’. But even more than that, it’s a fascinating portrait of her engagement with the natural world: she investigates everything from the secret life of cacti to the tiny miracles encoded in an acorn seed, studding her observations with memorable sentences . Jahren’s singular gift is her ability to convey the everyday wonder of her work: exploring the strange, beautiful universe of living things that endure and evolve and bloom all around us, if we bother to look. In Lab Girl , pioneering geobiologist Jahren limns her journey [from] insecure young scientist [to] medals and professional and personal fulfillment. But her prose reaches another dimension when she describes her remarkable relationship with a lab guy, an undergraduate loner named Bill. The research partners dig holes, gather soil samples, battle personal demons, and keep each other grounded. She’s an acute observer, prickly—and funny as hell.” —Elizabeth Royte, ELLE “Attentive to subtle signs of growth and change, geobiologist Jahren turns her gaze not only outward but also inward and finds wonder even in minutiae: the flourishing of a seed, an emotional efflorescence in her own psyche. ‘There I transformed from a girl into a scientist, just like Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man, only kind of backward,’ she writes.” —Jennifer Maloney, The Wall Street Journal, “The Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books”. “Jahren, a professor of geobiology, recounts her unfolding journey to discover ‘what it’s like to be a plant’ in this darkly humorous, emotionally raw, and exquisitely crafted memoir. Jahren, who ‘loves [her] calling to excess,’ describes the joy of working alone at night, the ‘multidimensional glory’ of a manic episode, scavenging jury-rigged equipment from a retiring colleague, or spontaneously road-tripping with students. For Jahren, a life in science yields the gratification of asking, knowing, and telling; for the reader, the joy is in hearing about the process as much as the results.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review). The author’s father was a science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist. “Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl burns with her love of science, teaching us the way great teachers can. In Lab Girl , pioneering geobiologist Jahren limns her journey [from] insecure young scientist [to] medals and professional and personal fulfillment. But her prose reaches another dimension when she describes her remarkable relationship with a lab guy, an undergraduate loner named Bill. The research partners dig holes, gather soil samples, battle personal demons, and keep each other grounded. She’s an acute observer, prickly—and funny as hell.” —Elizabeth Royte, ELLE “Attentive to subtle signs of growth and change, geobiologist Jahren turns her gaze not only outward but also inward and finds wonder even in minutiae: the flourishing of a seed, an emotional efflorescence in her own psyche. ‘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.’” —Dawn Raffel, More. It’s not surprising that today we relegate those who speak the language of biology, chemistry or physics to a kind of rarified ghetto. The best moments describe observation in nature, which lead to a question, which in turn formulates a hypothesis, generates an experiment and, with luck, yields the ecstasy of discovery. What Lab Girl offers, beyond the pleasure of reading it, is the insight that science is built of small contributions, not masterstrokes like e=mc2.

From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” ( Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. Experience a real intelligence based on a sense of touch that humans can barely imagine.” (Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation ). "Renowned author Sy Montgomery's latest gem is a must read for those who want to dissolve the human-constructed borders between "them" (other animals) and us. (Vicki Constantine Croke, author of Elephant Company ). "In The Soul of an Octopus , Sy Montgomery immerses readers into an intriguing, seductive world just beneath the ocean waves and the lives of the creatures living within. Sy Montgomery faces these questions head-on in her engaging new book as she explores the world of octopuses, making friends with several and finding heartbreak when they die. (Virginia Morell, author of ANIMAL WISE: How We Know Animals Think and Feel ). "With apparent delight, Montgomery puts readers inside the world of these amazing creatures. (Library Journal Editors' Spring Pick). "Sweet moments are at the heart of Montgomery's compassionate, wise and tender new book... Only a writer of her talent could make readers care about octopuses as individuals... Entertaining books like The Soul of an Octopus remind us of just how much we not only have to learn from fellow creatures, but that they can have a positive impact on our lives." (Newsday). "Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what. Helen Macdonald 's H Is for Hawk did for raptors." (Columbus Dispatch). "Naturalist Montgomery writes exceptionally affecting and enlightening books inspired by both rigorous scientific curiosity and enraptured wonder and empathy for all living beings...In prose as gripping and entwining as her. subjects’ many arms, Montgomery chronicles the octopus’ phenomenal strength, dexterity, speed... She also tells funny and moving stories about her friendships... Montgomery’s uniquely intimate portrait of the elusive octopus profoundly recalibrates our perception of consciousness, communication, and community." In the end, the book leaves one with the impression that our way of interacting with the world is not the only way or the most superior way and that sentience similarly comes in a variety of equally astounding forms, all worthy of recognition and compassion.” (Science Magazine). “Montgomery’s journey of discovery encourages the reader to reflect on his or her own definition of consciousness and “soul.” In the end, the book leaves one with the impression that our way of interacting with the world is not the only way or the most superior way and that sentience similarly comes in a variety of equally astounding forms, all worthy of recognition and compassion.” (Shelf Awareness, Best Book of 2015 List) A Notable Book of the Year (Huffington Post). " The Soul of an Octopus is an astoundingly beautiful read in its entirety, at once scientifically illuminating and deeply poetic, and is indeed a worthy addition to the best science books of the year ." The book takes readers on a vivid tour of their complex inner world… explores their proclivities, their relationships and their intelligence and ultimately tries to deduce whether they possess consciousness… It is hard to come away from this book without a new appreciation for these wonderful creatures.” (Scientific American) 2016 Notable Book (American Library Association) Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and author of twenty acclaimed books of nonfiction for adults and children, including the National Book Award finalist The Soul of an Octopus and the memoir The Good Good Pig , a New York Times bestseller.