It is the vitality of Henrietta Lacks and her descendants that captured my imagination while reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
.
It’s just a darned good story and it pushes all my “I want to read that” buttons – lively characters, science, mystery, public policy and politics, genealogy, plus a few I’ve probably not yet identified.
When you finish a book with a feeling you know some of the characters, and wishing you could visit further with them, you know it’s been worth your time. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s just that good.
I do not recommend One Second After
as a good book to start reading by candlelight and/or a Coleman lantern
when the power is out on a cold winter holiday evening.
And now that the lights are back on, I find myself not recommending the book for most other times. It’s not that it contains bad information, or that the plot couldn’t have been riveting, it’s just sappy. This kind of book should be anything but sappy.
One thing I found annoying was the author’s comparisons to the plight of the people after an EMP attack as reducing living conditions to those of medieval times. That is annoying because the situation he describes makes medieval times look good by comparison.
The message that civilization is fragile and must be guarded by those seemingly uncivilized is a difficult one to swallow. It was the same in medieval times… yet completely different because nothing ‘better’ was known.
The huge difference is that we today are not fully aware of the slippery place of civilization that protects us from the demons below. No parent in medieval times would have worried about the availability of insulin, for their diabetic child would never have lived in the first place.
There is the conundrum. The problems of the fall of civilization are due to the rise of civilization. In medieval times, civilization was new. It was not the norm for most, but rather for the few.
So… this book is not recommended for most, yet highly recommended for a few. It is up to you which group you belong to.
The book is due out in the U.S. in a few days. I was fortunate to have been given a paperback of the UK release by my sister on her recent visit to the U.S. When she gave it to me, she warned “it’s gory and graphic, but I think you’ll like it.”
Gory it is. I’d give it a 10 on the gore scale as it is a book that contains chapters you might not want to read while eating. The methods of torture (not necessarily used to gain information, but used to prolong the suffering of death) aren’t new. They are likely accurate descriptions, which is more chilling than if they were made up.
What is distinctly NOT made up is the archaeology in the book. Gobekli Tepe definitely exists and the linkages between it’s location and biblical events are fairly well documented, extremely interesting, and intriguing.
Christian fundamentalists and young earth creationists are going to hate this book. While the link between Gobekli Tepe and the Yezedis is somewhat tenuous as presented, the idea of the evolution of ancient religions and myths is not. If Gobekli Tepe is “the Garden of Eden” of old, it’s certainly been upgraded many times.
It’s been well over a month since I read this book and I still find myself wondering about ideas and simple facts brought up in it. Whether you love it or hate it, this book will likely stay with you.
Assistant Village Idiot has over the past several months intrigued me with references to this author and I finally ordered one of his books.
A not-so-random quote from p. 19:
Almost no one can conceal his emotions. Behavioral scientists believe that one of the main reasons why people become leaders is not from what skills they seem to possess, but rather from what extremely superficial impression they make on other through hardly perceptible physical signals — what we call today “charisma,” for example. The biology of the phenomenon is now well-studied under the subject heading “social emotions.”
Meanwhile some historian will “explain” the success in terms of, perhaps, tactical skills, the right education, or some other theoretical reason seen in hindsight. In addition, there seem to be curious evidence of a link between leadership and a form of psychopathology (the sociopath) that encourages the non-blinking, self-confident, insensitive person to rally followers.
(paragraph break added for online readability)
Back to the book now… I’m sure I’ll find more to share with you later.
