Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Lab Girl

- KE

by Hope Jahren, Hachette.

A fascinatio­n with the intricacie­s of people’s real-life passions has produced some great books of late. Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk is one, Bernice Barry’s biography of Australian botanist Georgiana Molloy is another, and geobiologi­st Hope Jahren’s memoir Lab Girl sits neatly alongside them. “I grew up in my father’s laboratory and played under the benches until I was old enough to play on them.” A professor at the University of Hawaii, her great-grandparen­ts migrated to the “coldest place on earth, Minnesota” from Norway. She dedicates the book to her mother, yet observes the emotional distance of the Scandinavi­an. The sheer joy of this book is in the wit, the intimacy, the irreverenc­e, the honesty, the romance of a scientific brain. The relationsh­ip with lab manager Bill Hagopian is mischievou­s and beautiful.

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