Saturday, October 1, 2011, 2 p.m.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Here is a segment of "CBS Sunday Morning" about the book.



I was going to write a much longer post about this book because it raises so many questions that I find interesting, questions about scientific ethics and laws regarding scientific research. In the back of the book, there is a discussion about various legal and ethical issues of human tissue research. The issue that interests me the most is the idea that a genetic sequence is patentable. I went looking for information on this and found this great link to a Nova episode called "Cracking the Genetic Code," which was originally a 2-hour program which has been broken up into 8 to 10-minute segments for easy viewing on your computer. I fully intend to watch it now that baseball season is over.

Abraham Verghese: A Doctor's Touch

Another great find from Linda. (sorry it is so low on the page)

One-Star Reviews from Amazon.com

Link from Linda:

"Lone Star Statements"


I have to agree with the reviewer's comment about Slaughterhouse-Five vs. Gravity's Rainbow, the one Linda highlighted in her email, but other than that, the reviews in the article seem to be written by Spock from "Star Trek." They remind me of Three Panel Book Review, a cartoon that appears in The San Francisco Chronicle's book section.

Women Suffrage Centennial 1911-2011/ Women’s Equality Day August 26th

From Milli-Ann:

Dear Friends,

As I alluded to at the end of our book club meeting yesterday, on October 10, 2011 we will be celebrating the 100th Anniversary of women voting in California.

In 1911, California became only the 6th state in the United States where women could vote – nine years before passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

The women in the rest of the country (most of them) had to wait almost 10 more years for voting rights.

I hope you enjoy HerStory’s YouTube production honoring the women behind the nineteenth amendment. The ninety-first anniversary of its passage was August 26th, Equality Day. Please pass this LEGACY on to friends and family.

Best regards,

Milli-Ann (Iuso-Cox)

To view our YouTube Winning A Voice video click here.

To understand more about Women’s Equality Day click here.

To view our HerStory website click here: HerStory For Futures Unlimited.

In order that Equality Day, August 26th, becomes a tradition, it must not only be proclaimed but observed with appropriate celebrations. Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns’s film and book about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, emphasizes that we are doing this NOT FOR OURSELVES ALONE but for our posterity.

So first, educate yourself by clicking on these three important links. Then, send the WAV YouTube link onto your friends and family encouraging them to do the same. By spreading the word in this manner we will keep this legacy alive.

P.S. If our clip about the long 140-year struggle for Women to have a voice in their government wets your appetite, enjoy some of the other YouTube clips. (I especially like the ones about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton sung by SpiderAdams01 (Steve Adams) and the one about Alice Strokes Paul.

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For those of you who did not get the email with the flyer, about the event at the library on Saturday, August 24, 2011, here is a link to the page at the library website.

Book Art

Thanks to Linda for another great link. This is a blog post about paper sculptures made from books mysteriously appearing at libraries around Edinburgh, Scotland.

Saturday, September 10, 2011, at 2:00 p.m.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak