As I wrote about in
this post, I was invited back to the Chicago Botanic Garden to lead their second
One Book One Garden. We met on the evening of November 14th and discussed
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.
Click through to read about their One Book One Garden program in general. This post is my report on our discussion. Feel free to use these notes to help you lead your book club.
On a side note, we had 25 people come out on a Tuesday night! All participated in the discussion. We had men and women who from the young (20s) up to seniors. You do not see this diversity in your average public library book discussion.
I think I know why because it was at the Garden NOT the Library. The Chicago Botanic Garden attracts everyone, not just library people. Also, because they are normally more of a research library, this program is “different” for them. It draws interest for being unique and standing out among their other programs. Also the library staff involves the public programs staff to help advertise and run the program so they get help with that part.
Takeaways for those of us in the public library to learn from this with wonderful opportunities to consider:
- We often host book discussions outside of the library-- bars and restaurants being the most popular. We know those draw a different crowd than in the building, but it is still library leaning people.
- Is there an organization in or near your community who would be willing to have a book discussion with you? Local history museum, Art League, or something of the like. A place where people are already members and participate in programming? Why can’t we have them offer up a book discussion on a title that would appeal to their members and we help by offering a staff member to facilitate. It could help both organizations. The library will advertise themselves to a group who might not be core users and the other organization can offer a program that is totally different from what they usually offer.
- Don’t forget that there are special libraries embedded within organizations and businesses in your area. Contact the Special Library Association to get a list. If they have a special library, they have at least 1 staff member. Work with that person to provide book discussions at their location, to their patrons. Even at a law library, you could have a book discussion once in a while.
Okay, enough about that. As you can see, I loved being a part of the One Book One Garden program this year, and I am so proud of them for already having the next one scheduled for March. I have also spoken to their Director about sharing their success at a library conference. But let’s get on with the actual report.
Here is
the publisher’s summary courtesy of LitLovers:
Lab Girl Hope Jahren, 2016Knopf Doubleday304 pp.ISBN-13: 9781101873724
SummaryAn 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. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more.
Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together.
It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.
Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.
Jahren’s probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her acute insights on nature enliven every page of this extraordinary book. Lab Girl opens your eyes to the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal.
Here is an eloquent demonstration of what can happen when you find the stamina, passion, and sense of sacrifice needed to make a life out of what you truly love, as you discover along the way the person you were meant to be. (From the publisher.)
I was very nervous to discuss this book about a botanist with hard core plant people. They were also book people, so I reminded myself of that, but I also was very honest at the start as to how much of a botany-novice I was. I think they appreciated me acknowledging it, and I was only corrected once during the evening for saying, “ Who knew dirt was so interesting and complex.” One participant responded curtly, “It's called soil.” I said, “Thank you for correcting me. You are right.”
Since I began by telling them I was not as much of a plant person as them, I then led into my first question [one I created for this talk]
Question: Why are plants so important in your life? And did reading Jahren’s memoir of her life compliment or contradict your own connection with plants.
- Someone chimed in right away to say, you know, I read this book with my neighborhood book club and everyone hated the book. They said they didn’t “get” it. I was surprised because as a plant person, it was amazing to me. I found it fascinating because, although I like plants, she approached them from a different place than me.
- That led me to quickly poll the group on if they all did actually like Lab Girl. They did 100%. I am not surprised. As a side note, for these special library type book clubs you are going to get a lot more consensus on a book than you might in a library book club. You want to make sure to pick a book people will like because just having a book discussion is outside the wheelhouse of the place who is hosting it.
- These opening comments led to a barrage of comments about the book to start things off
- I liked how her inclusion of science was approachable, not over the top but enough so I learned something new.
- I am so glad I read this book than for no other reason than it explained to me [scientifically] why I don’t like a certain tree.
- I liked how she was honest about how hard it is to be a scientist in the real world when you aren’t doing popular research.
- It was an interesting view into the world of science. Some of it I knew but the fact that you literally have to go where the money is, study what they give you money for, and look into what you want only if you have time.
- I didn’t know how resourceful they had to be-- jerry-rigging their own instruments to do specific tasks.
- I thought a new professor walked into a lab that while not fully stocked was more than a dirty basement with nothing.
Question: Let’s talk about the way Jahren tells her life story in this book.
- It was approachable and humorous while still be serious and scientific.
- I loved how she had a long chapter about her life and then a “Let’s Botanize” short chapter.
- Those botany chapters were so fascinating, like the one about how the trees “talk;” communicate over long distances.
- I learned so much about plants
- I am in horticulture education and I loved how she made plants relatable. She taught key things without dumbing it down or making readers feel stupid.
- I was excited to learn from her and hear about her life.
- I would love to be able to sit in on one of her lectures, She must be an amazing teacher.
- I loved how she related her studies to life lessons. She learned about living from studying plants.
- She writes very well. She told this in a fiction story format.
- She humanized trees and plants. She took her passion inspiration as a guide and is encouraging others to look at plants and their lives the same way.
Question: Let’s talk about Jahren family and personal life
- From the opening scenes where she writes about going to the lab with her father and then to bring her dream to have her own lab one day to fruition was inspiring. She worked so hard and without any emotional or financial support from her family to get there.
- Her words-- she “played" in her father’s lab, but she “toiled” in her mother’s garden.
- She talks about the cold of outside-- walking home with dad being replaced by a different kind of cold when she got home to her mother.
- This led a few of us to bring up the fact that Jahren dedicated this book to her mother-- “Everything I write is for my mother.” Why? They did not have much of a relationship and after the opening chapters she never really comes up again.
- Jahren’s love of reading and writing came from her English major mother.
- It shows an acceptance of her mother for who she was by dedicating the book to her.
- Hope was worried about how to be a mother herself since she had not role model. Instead she decides to be a “father” to her son.
- She plays with idea of gender a lot in the book. Being a female scientists in an all male world and being more attached to her father were examples.
- Her parents and bothers were NO WHERE in the story.
- The family stuff is the groundwork of who she became-- a self made woman who felt isolated at times, but who made her own family.
- This is more than just a memoir of her personal life, but that info is there.
Question: Speaking of making her own family....Bill. Who wants to talk about her lab partner?
- Everyone should have a Bill in their lives!
- Not everyone was as enamored with Bill.
- Someone pointed out that this is still a book and Jahren is the author. It may be her life, but Bill is a character in her drama. He seems a bit exaggerated. A “Falstaff” like character.
- He is pragmatic and she is the idea person.
- What she doesn’t say about Bill is as important as what she does say. She releases info about him and herself very sparingly. You have to “dig” for details. [Ha]. Think about how late in the book we find out that the run down brownstone Bill lived in in Baltimore he actually slowly fixed up and flipped, making a fortune on it. Enough to buy a gorgeous house on a mountain in Hawaii overlooking the ocean.
- Someone asked if they thought Bill was truly in love with her romantically and just never told her. Her argument was, why did he follow her around the world job after job, without a guaranteed salary if he didn’t.
- More people than not thought no, they loved each other like brother and sister. They were each other’s family [even though Bill had a close family]. Both were odd and broken, but they found each other.
- Bill did not have the Phd and could never have had as exciting, interesting, or as high up of a job in any lab but hers. He sorta had to follow her. But thankfully, he believed in her.
- Also, who knew more about “dirt,” I mean soil than Bill.
- I was amazed that Bill allowed her to show so much about his life. That is trust.
Question: From the audience-- Is everything in here true?
- Becky began by saying that is the million dollar question when we talk about memoirs. Memoir by definition is different from a biography in that is the author telling a story about a part of their life. It never claims to be a birth to present recounting of every detail. It is a story first and foremost. So I asked the group-- what do you think is true? And does it matter?
- The science of course is true and her discussions of the experiments she ran and the jobs she had.
- But there is a poetry and rhythm to the book-- the way she tells it-- that life does not so neatly lay out.
- So many lines that are pure beauty. People shared a few. Also the paragraph she wrote about grief in response to Bill’s father dying was beautiful.
- The way she described trees! It was different than anything like it I have read before, and I read a lot about trees. So interesting and exciting.
- She compares a tree to writing a budget. It’s a perfect metaphor.
- I am an environmental science teacher and I bought this book last year to give to my TAs to inspire them to become scientists. Someone asked her if they were female. She said yes. That person said I think this is a book for women.
- A man chimed in, no. It is for anyone- especially anyone who has struggled.
Question: This led us to another line of questioning-- What is this book about? Besides it’s genre as memoir.
- Again, it is a book for anyone who struggles.
- You can focus on different things and the book is “about” something completely different
- Life of a scientist
- Female in a male profession
- She is very blunt and direct about the misogyny in science. There are so many examples here.
- We talked about women in science and the statistics about how they are mistreated, not cited as much, treated poorly, and hard to retain. A few of the women in the room were women in science and had been to conferences on the topic. This discussion was very interesting. I was glad we had these women in the room and they were willing to share their knowledge and personal experiences.
- Living with mental illness-- bipolar
- Her “family”
- It would be interesting to reread the book a few times and concentrate on how she tells only one of the story threads. Go back and repeat with a different thread. That would be cool.
- Writing this book was her therapy
- She is a special person. This book can’t be about 1 thing because she is not defined by one thing.
We talked about her bipolar disorder for a bit
- We see bits of her mania at first and while we are uncomfortable about is as readers, it seems like she is just a workaholic.
- But she slowly unveils more and more details and we see her hit bottom.
- But we also see her seek medical help, get a diagnosis and get a better handle on her condition
- We have to watch her get worse, but we also get to see her improve.
- It is amazing how much she did while very ill. She did world renowned scientific research and managed a lab-- budgets, meetings, etc... all while ill.
- We also see how stressful being a scientist is. Just how hard it is to get funding was stressful and then knowing you have people who rely on you for a salary too? Yikes
- I think it is interesting that she found a career that her mental illness didn’t hold her back. Sometimes it helped her to go on her manic binges and work for hours straight. Sometimes research needs that.
- Nature can also calm anxiety.
- When you learn about trees and what they can and have survived just to live-- she talks about this point a lot-- it gives you hope about your trials.
Question: Any final thoughts?
- It was Einstein who said, Without science there is no wonder and without wonder there is no science. I am grateful she can continue to study science for the wonder and not just for the money.
- We are lucky she has an inner thirst for knowledge and studies the things that we need to know but might not have practical applications-- like all of her paleo-botany.
- Nature will always accept you and make you feel better.
Readalikes: During the discussion we had a heated exchange about whether or not
H is for Hawk by
Helen Macdonald is a readalike for this book. Many resources and marketing materials for
Lab Girl list it as one. There were people who have read both and some liked both and some only liked
Lab Girl. We talked a bit about why they were similar and how they were different. In the end, a few people who hadn’t read
H is for Hawk were excited to read it.
Other readalikes came up throughout:
- Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman- Lab Girl is the best book I have read to portray what it is actually life to live with mental illness since reading this one.
- David Sedaris’ memoirs go back and forth between serious and humours like Jahren
- It reminded me of Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Finally here is the text that I gave the Botanic Garden Library staff to use for readalike handouts if they wanted. Please note,
these are only titles held by their library [summaries all link to Goodreads]:
If you liked Lab Girl, here are a few more books in our collection you may also enjoy...
All things reconsidered : my birding adventures / Roger Tory Peterson ; edited by Bill Thompson III. [QL677.5.P384 2006]
The world's most famous bird watcher recounts his travels in pursuit of birds. A decade after the death of Roger Tory Peterson, his unique perspective on birding comes to life in these highly personal narratives. Here he relates his adventures during a lifetime of traveling the world to observe and record nature. Peterson's sense of adventure and curiousity could not be extinguished.
The backyard parables : lessons on gardening, and life / Margaret Roach. [SB454.3.P45R63 2013]
After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo." In THE BACKYARD PARABLES, Roach uses her fundamental understanding of the natural world, philosophy, and life to explore the ways that gardening saved and instructed her, and meditates on the science and spirituality of nature, reminding her readers and herself to keep on digging.
The hidden life of trees : what they feel, how they communicate : discoveries from a secret world / Peter Wohlleben ; foreword by Tim Flannery. [QK475.W64 2016]
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.
...Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him.
Seeing trees : discover the extraordinary secrets of everyday trees / by Nancy Ross Hugo ; photography by Robert J. Llewellyn. [QK477.2.I4H84 2011]
Have you ever looked at a tree? That may sound like a silly question, but there is so much more to notice about a tree than first meets the eye. Seeing Trees celebrates seldom seen but easily observable tree traits and invites you to watch trees with the same care and sensitivity that birdwatchers watch birds. Many people, for example, are surprised to learn that oaks and maples have flowers, much less flowers that are astonishingly beautiful when viewed up close.
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...Stop by for even more ideas on what to read next.
