New Book I'm Preordering

I heard this weekend from Betsy, mother to Rebecca Skloot (remember the article about nontraditional service animals?) that Rebecca is publishing a new book in February. Amazon will put more into book promotions if books are preordered, so I'm putting the title and cover blurb on this post hoping it will inspire others to get the book, too. This book is so up my alley - biography, medicine, and the South, not to mention some social commentary. The book is called "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." The book will be released February 2, and Rebecca will be interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air. She's also coming to Powells to read some time in April.

Excerpt from back of book blurb:

"Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first 'immortal' human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though Henrietta has been dead for more than sixty years. They were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the 'colored' ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950's to the small, dying town of Clover, Virginia--a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo--to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta's children, unable to afford health insurance, wrestle with feelings of pride, fear, and betrayal. Their story is inextricably linked to the birth of bioethics, the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, and the legal battles that could determine whether we own our bodies.

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences."

The book is available in both hardcover and audiobook for pre-publication orders at amazon.com.