The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson1/20/2022 We had a smaller group for this discussion, as it was an optional book for January, and quite a large one at that. Overall, we gave this book 4 stars. We felt it was well written and that the author did a great job of making complex scientific concepts understandable enough so that the reader could follow along. We had a great discussion about the ethics surrounding gene editing, disabilities and diseases and who determines what should be available to be changed, and more. We all would have liked more of Jennifer Doudna. The story did a good job of including the many scientists who were part of the collaboration that led to the discoveries around gene editing, and we wondered if Ms. Doudna perhaps encouraged that. We did find her fascinating, and would love to see more. Would also love to read more about Zheng and Charpentier, both for their perspectives and that they were interesting. The themes in the book followed those mentioned by the author in an interview - 1 - Be passionately, playfully curious 2 - Be useful 3 - Know when to compete and when to cooperate 4 - Persist 5 - Connect technology to humanity Overall good book, well written, about a topic we should all try to learn about and think about! Wouldn't it make a great miniseries on a streaming service with each episode from another scientists perspective on their part of the story? notes: themightygirl website has great resources for learning about women in history
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I've been lucky enough to receive advance copies of some books from the Girly Book Club Blogger program, and write honest reviews about them for their blog. These are some of the books I've reviewed thus far. To see my review, just click on the book cover.
This was our November pick, and most of the members thought it was good, but not great. A common comment was that it needed more action - they kept waiting for something to happen. It was a good snapshot of the time period, and a window into the lives of the people at that time.
Someone mentioned that they also just read City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, and that they were very similar - she kept mixing up the two! More than one person said they just didn't care about the characters, that women's roles in the 1930's were very restrictive choices. Our discussion led us to a conclusion that while the characters in the story were well fleshed out, the relationships felt strange. Perhaps a male author doesn't fully understand complicated female relationships and how deep they can be? Photography is a key theme, and the extra information about the subway photo series was very cool to look at on the author's website. As for the title, while the Rules of Civility acts as Tinker's moral compass, Katey is really the primary character in the book. It made for a strange title. After our virtual meeting, a member commented that even though most of us didn't love the book, the discussion was a really good one. There was a lot to discuss, and everyone participated. I've noticed this over the years - sometimes our favorite books are comfortable but not very discussion-worthy. It's the books we struggle a bit with that hold more to really discuss and debate over. We read Persuasion for our October meeting as our classic choice for this year's club. I think we were all expecting to enjoy this as much as we enjoyed Pride and Prejudice a few years ago, and we didn't. More than half the members struggled with this book. Some tried audio and that helped, some watched the movie. I suspect that this choice was not so much a bad book for book club as maybe a bad choice for a quarantine/Covid/2020 book. This year it feels like we need stories that grab us and hold our attention like never before.
We were so lucky to have the author join us for a zoom call in September to discuss this book! She was lovely and talking to her added to our enjoyment and discussion of the book! This book with themes of family, faithfulness in relationships, priorities, sisterhood, forgiveness, and growing into the person you are meant to be is a great book club choice. The author's depiction of summer and holidays in New England was charming and the characters were relatable.
We read this book for our June, 2020 meeting, and just about everyone really enjoyed it! In short, it is an account of the Theranos scandal in which Elizabeth Holmes had an idea to create a medical device that would be able to produce quick results for a wide variety of tests from just a few drops of blood from a pin prick. The device was never successfully made but she garnered huge sums of money from venture capitalists, Walgreens, Safeway supermarkets, and investors based on telling them it was working.
The club's consensus was that it was very well written, and although there was a lot of information to present, the author did a wonderful job of making it read like a story! It was a page-turner, and most were shocked at both how many people were discarded by trying to tell the truth or disagreeing, and by how many intelligent successful people believed her in spite of warning signs they should not do so. Our group took turns describing this book in one word, and here are their answers: frustrating, completely unethical, gullible (so many fell for this), under a spell, riveting, angry (her power over people based on a lie), mind-boggling, compelling, exciting - wanted to find out what would happen next, gripping, eye-opening Other impressions: - would love to meet her to see if she is as compelling as she is made out to be - so much money was involved - the story repeated itself a little bit with timelines that followed one story thread and then doubled back to follow another - there are a lot of people to keep track of so most people just kept reading and didn't worry about remembering all the names - she was a con artist - noticed that so much of the money she received was from men - power over them? older men were presented as enthralled by her. - she used her connections with no remorse - she clearly is a narcissist - there was a workplace culture of fear, and the separation of teams was crazy - she had some workers fearful about their visas - where did all these employees and others involved end up? There was a lot to discuss about this book, and it generated a great conversation. Questions we talked about: Did anyone watch the HBO documentary about Elizabeth Holmes or listen to the podcast The Dropout? What was it about Elizabeth Holmes that made so many people believe her and give her so much money? Do you think this type of machine could be realized? Do you think that Carreyrou's account of the Theranos scandal is biased in any way? What was most shocking? Do you think Elizabeth had convinced herself that she was telling the truth? Where were the truth-tellers? The whistle blowers? Will you keep track of the upcoming court case? How does this nonfiction account compare in writing style to other books you have read recently? |
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