Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer, and a contributing editor at 
Calling all academics: If you'd like a free advanced copy of my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, to consider it for course adoption, get thee to Random House's academic blog and request a copy quick, while supplies last (which probably won't be long at the rate things are going). See below for more information on the book, and advanced praise. It's a story with wide potential for course adoption in the sciences, bioethics, African-American studies, womens studies, creative writing, journalism, and much more. Added bonus: If you teach the book this spring, you can also get me to come speak at your school/in your classes as part of my book tour.Here's Publishers Weekly on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks:
Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about "faith, science, journalism, and grace." It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women--Skloot and Deborah Lacks--sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah's mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells. Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line--known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. What Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henrietta's death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children. Skloot's portraits of Deborah, her father and brothers are so vibrant and immediate they recall Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family. Writing in plain, clear prose, Skloot avoids melodrama and makes no judgments. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people.
- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Education
Medicine & Health
Comments
Rebecca, will you be doing a book signing at a Memphis bookstore?
Posted by: BGT | November 6, 2009 8:02 AM