Thursday, August 02, 2012

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

I could not put this book down.  It's a heart-wrenching story about tissue research intertwined with the effects of poverty and racism. I am not a science person but I really enjoyed reading this book. Bioethics is truly a fascinating field. 

Some catch up

It's been a long time since I wrote in this blog, so I thought it would be good to reflect on some of the books I have read in the past 6 months.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: I am not a science person, but this story of poverty, race, sexism, ethics entwined with the history of the HeLa cells is too fascinating. I could not put it down.

India Calling: Amazing. Any person of Indian origin that has lived abroad will find something to relate to in this book. It is not fiction, but one person's real account of growing up  in the US and moving to India as an adult. He talks about the changing India and it's just completely relatable. A lot of what he says made complete sense to me.

Suburban Sahibs: This book is about being Indian in Jersey and looks at real live families and their stories as immigrants settling in the area. Worth the read as well.

Divorce Islamic Style: Recently, I went to Italy. I picked up this book from the library because of the interesting title but it turns out it is originally written in Italian and takes place in Rome! I have a general fascination with the lives of immigrants and this was an interesting fictional perspective of being Middle Eastern Muslim in Italy. I liked Amara Lakhous's writing style so I plan to read his other book.

Water For Elephants: This was well-written but the ending was underwhelming for me. It does give a nice insider view of circus life.  

Monday, January 16, 2012

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I am weary of anyone who gets treated like a god. The way people worship expensive Macs and how some people treated Steve Jobs as a divine being bothered me. I barely knew anything about him other than that he was the founder of Apple. I only ever read/heard in the media of how private he kept his life and when he criticized another company like Flash or Microsoft.

With this book, I developed a new-found respect for Jobs. Very few people match his passion and his biography portrays his strengths and flaws. The guy lived on LSD as a student and is a Buddhist/Hare Ram Hare Krishna follower.

Worth the read.