82 Books Like A Lab of One's Own

While there has been some controversy about the science in Simard’s book, there’s no doubt that it’s a great read that juxtaposes Simard’s personal life with her scientific life.

I was drawn to her personal story, which takes place in both government and academic spheres. I cried with her when her brother passed away, and I was proud with her when her daughter said she might want to study forestry at university.

The mix of science and memoir works well in this book, showing how the two are inextricably entwined. I was impressed by how hard Simard worked to keep her family together, particularly when she was a professor at UBC in Vancouver, and they were living in Nelson.  

I liked that Jahren told the unvarnished truth of her experience in academia; like Zimmerman, she also shares how academia treats pregnant people. 

She talks about training the next generation of scientists, which is one of the main goals of the scientific enterprise.

Though I wasn’t impressed with the hazing ritual she and her lab manager had for new students in the lab, I did appreciate the excellent writing and well-paced narrative. Jahren is a stunning writer, and her book is neatly separated into sections about a tree, followed by a chapter about life mimicking that tree. 

I loved this book because it deftly communicated the author’s love of botany and the challenges facing it as a science.

I was introduced to a whole new world: that of plants and their role in our ecosystems. I also enjoyed the story about Zimmerman’s fieldwork in Guyana and how she wasn’t really cut out for fieldwork, but was good at organizing things for their trip home.

I recommend this book if you want to get inside knowledge of the university, including how poorly women are often treated—especially when they are pregnant and/or nursing. Zimmerman also brings to life the world of botany and how it’s becoming a dying science just when we need it the most. 

I enjoyed the arc of Elkins-Tanton’s life because it wasn’t all spent in science. She showed how her few years in business and teaching math at a college after her MSc gave her skills helpful for doing her PhD.

I particularly liked the insights she provided into being a woman in an executive position and the ways in which she had to learn to serve her research community. It is rare for a woman to reach these administrative levels, so it’s highly valuable to get the inside scoop about it.

I was also struck by her innovative techniques in teaching and research in planetary science—we have much to learn from her approach. 

This bawdy 1958 novel reads like a bizarre porn script (or a parody of one).

Like the hapless hero of Voltaire’s Candide, Candy Christian is an intelligent and generous-minded (albeit naive) college student who lets herself be taken advantage of by all sorts of sophisticated perverts whose only goal (they claim) is to assist Candy on her spiritual journey.

It’s probably asking a lot of the contemporary reader to continue with this absurd (and sexist) premise, but I admit it – I laughed a lot and on almost every single page. 

Candy is prurient, amoral, and silly, but easy and fun reading. Such novels upend the stereotype of 1950s American society as prudish and straight-laced and herald a more relaxed attitude towards sex.

Although this novel focuses on the world of investment banking, I list it here because it shows the difference between being a female working in finance and being a male working in finance; like This is what happens, it shows the impact of sexism on one woman's professional life, her dream, her ambition, her failure to achieve the former despite the latter.

I read it quite a while ago but was reminded of it while reading recently about the recent Martin/Nicole thing (wherein they switched email addresses, so Martin experienced what it was like to be Nicole for a couple of weeks) ("Folks, it sucked" was his summary).  

Song’s interdisciplinary work in the fields of politics, law, and philosophy explores the tensions that arise when culturally diverse democratic states pursue justice for religious and cultural minorities and justice for women. Much of Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism relates to North America. Song argues that egalitarian justice requires special accommodations for cultural minorities and that gender equality may restrict cultural accommodation. While we need to be sensitive to historical cultural rights, we should also protect basic human rights. Song lucidly and incisively discusses cultural defense in criminal law, aboriginal membership rules, and Mormon polygamy, examining the role of intercultural interactions in shaping such cultural conflicts. As I did in my work, Song emphasises intercultural democratic, deliberative dialogue as a means for resolving cultural conflicts.

I'm a reader who loves books where characters determine the story arc. Plot-driven books generally leave me cold. This novel has a cast of players I found easy to empathize with; even the villains. They are drawn in fascinating detail with all their flaws and all their glories to make them real people who are easy to engage with throughout the story. In spite of some tough scenes, it's a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

The author introduces some thought-provoking and timely themes here. The story examines injustice, wealth inequality, gender discrimination, political intrigue, the fallibility of leaders, ethics, and morality, and the ever-present problems of prejudice driven by ignorance. All themes guaranteed to engage me.

Feminist theorist Dale Spender wrote, in Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them, “We need to know how women disappear….”  Although she spoke of women who disappear from the historical record, all too many women seem to disappear from any sort of public life as soon as they leave high school: so many shine there, but once they graduate, they become invisible. What happens?  

Marriage and kids is an inadequate answer because married-with-kids straight-A boys are visible.  Everywhere. Even the straight-B boys are out there. So what happens?

This is what happens.

It’s a very clever, very funny novella about a talented literary editor, Quin, told alternately in his own voice and by a long-term friend of his, Margot.

Margot defends and normalises his behaviour towards women until she is forced to reassess his actions in the light of numerous accusations, all of which fall short of actual assault or rape, sex, or even touching. Is he an abuser? Or is he just a playful, overgrown manchild who thrives on emotionally intense and intimate friendships with women?

I loved the book because it refuses to answer the question definitively.