Here are 100 books that Lab 257 fans have personally recommended if you like
Lab 257.
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I am drawn to stories that grip, teach, and hold power to account. Some of my favorite writers have the ability to do all of it in one go–Lawrence Wright, David Grann, Dan Fagin, etc. I just try to write stories I want to read. So, when I started looking into a pharmacist who made drugs in a dirty lab outside Boston and who shipped his fungus-plagued vials throughout the U.S., I saw an opportunity. As an investigative journalist, I seek stories that shine light on dark corners of government and industry, as well as those that have the chance to better things while entertaining and educating the reader.
This is a great blow-by-blow primer on how the best investigative journalism is done. As a journalist, I admired the bravery of the author taking on the powerful people who propped up Theranos and its wunderkind founder, Elizabeth Holmes.
It reminds me of why I love the work I do, which is often leads to dead ends because someone doesn’t want you to know the truth. Books like Bad Blood show that it’s important to have investigative journalists who don’t give up the fight and end up saving lives by exposing fraud.
The shocking true story behind The Dropout, starring the Emmy award-winning Amanda Seyfried, Naveen Andrews and Stephen Fry.
'I couldn't put down this thriller . . . a book so compelling that I couldn't turn away' - Bill Gates
Winner of the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2018
The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end, despite pressure from its charismatic CEO and threats by her lawyers.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
As a forensic sculptor at the FBI, I was always trying to envision the best way to sculpt features from an unidentified skull. This is what led me to create a research project with the University of Tennessee to collect 3D scans of skulls and live photos of donors to use as a reference in my forensic casework. I’ve also diagrammed crime scenes, created demonstrative evidence for court, and worked with detectives, FBI agents, medical examiners, and forensic anthropologists on casework. Forensic art was never just a job to me; I feel it was what I was meant to do in my life.
I felt an affinity with Dr. Melinek partly because we both started our careers right before or right after 9/11 when we were both “learning the ropes” in our respective fields. In Dr. Melinek’s case, she had been working as an ME in New York City for two months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks; I started as a graphic artist at the FBI just two months after, in November 2001.
I loved this book because it gives the real day-to-day experiences of a woman working in what could be a depressing, ghastly environment. However, the author keeps her sense of humor throughout while showing the utmost compassion for victims. I found myself nodding my head in agreement at some of the cases she worked on, especially the one with an unidentified victim.
Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. While her husband and their toddler held down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation-performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines Flight 587.
As a hospital clinical lab director, I have a mission to promote the value of my profession. Are we more important than our soldiers protecting our country? Politicians who make laws? Judges who help maintain law and order? I argue that the health of our families is near or at the top of our priorities. While we ask our doctors to achieve this goal, they ask us every day to help them. The lab is not about boiling tubes and colored flasks. The 8 books I have written and the 5 that I have selected illustrate, in an entertaining manner, who we really are and why we matter.
Dr. Maisel is a media giant. First and foremost, he is a cardiologist and scientist. His work on cardiac biomarkers for heart failure laid the groundwork for clinical lab testing that is conducted in every hospital in the world today. Besides his hundreds of medical and scientific publications, he is a local stand-up comic, a social media influencer, and an author of medical thrillers.
I like this book because it shows the bad side of the dark side of medicine, i.e., where profit and ego are prioritized over ethics. Maisel interweaves numerous accurate references to the importance of lab tests into his story.
Other medical books trivialize how the lab works. Doctors really don’t just go there, randomly look at a microscope slide, and have a diagnostic “aha” moment.
Separating the true stories from the myths, The Duty of Memory provides a deeper understanding of the diverse motivations that drove ordinary people to join an underground network of French Resistants despite terrible odds and horrifying consequences.
This book takes the reader inside the true story of men and women…
As a hospital clinical lab director, I have a mission to promote the value of my profession. Are we more important than our soldiers protecting our country? Politicians who make laws? Judges who help maintain law and order? I argue that the health of our families is near or at the top of our priorities. While we ask our doctors to achieve this goal, they ask us every day to help them. The lab is not about boiling tubes and colored flasks. The 8 books I have written and the 5 that I have selected illustrate, in an entertaining manner, who we really are and why we matter.
Dr. Magnani has created a character, Dr. Lily Robinson, a stylish pathologist who has an encyclopedic knowledge of poisons. She uses her strong, investigational mind to solve some of the most difficult problems in medicine that anyone could face.
Dr. Robinson is not the media-portrayed stereotypical balding pathologist with thick glasses who walks around with a dirty lab coat and cannot carry out a conversation with live humans. Instead, she is confident and highly attractive, has long dark hair and captivating green eyes, and wears designer clothing.
The majority of clinical laboratory technologists are women. To move more into the limelight, the field needs strong role models for future generations, and Magnani has created one.
A Boston physician becomes an assassin for the U.S. government in this medical suspense thriller by an award-winning pathologist (Book 1 in the Dr. Lily Robinson trilogy.)
Hidden under a cloak of legitimacy, I have been pressed to deliver extraordinary service for my country. It has been a successful ruse. A premium blend of dark deception with just an aroma of truth.-Dr. Lily Robinson
Dr. Lily Robinson is a brilliant physician with an encyclopedic knowledge of all toxins and poisons, and a penchant for wearing stilettos. In an unforeseeable twist in her life, the United States Government appeals to her…
I grew up in a family of chefs and restaurant owners, so it’s probably no surprise that food plays a major role in my debut novel, All Stirred Up. (The two main characters are, in fact, chefs and restaurant owners. You write what you know!) Cooking plays a major part in my life as well—I’m always making something for family and loved ones. It’s probably no surprise that I love a good food book as well, whether it be fiction, memoir, or history. On my list are just five of my favourites.
Gabrielle Hamilton isn’t just a ‘reluctant chef’ (in her own words), she’s also an absolutely exquisite writer (her MFA really paid off!). Her memoir traces her life and love of food from her New Jersey childhood, through her many professional ups and downs and international travels (I especially love the parts where she’s staying at her Italian mother-in-law’s home, describing the incredible produce she was able to get. Oh, the tomatoes!) Did I extra love this because she grew up in the same small town I was born in? Maybe, but it’s a wonderful book no matter where you’re from.
A sharply crafted and unflinchingly honest memoir. This is a rollicking, passionate story of food, purpose and family.
Blood, Bones & Butter follows the chef Gabrielle Hamilton's extraordinary journey through the places she has inhabited over the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; and the kitchen of her beloved Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton's idyllic past and her…
I came of age during the tumult of the 1960s and 1970s. I stood more on the sidelines than at the burning center, so I’ve always wondered what it was like for those who did. That’s why I wrote my first novel, to go beyond the borders of my own experience. The 60s/70s era of political and sexual upheaval has reduced itself over time to a series of cliches. What I love about the books on my list is how willing they are to break through to real feelings and events and sensations. Hope you like them, too.
The utopian dreams of the 60s died hard, and this beautiful novel captures the mood of the decade—and the forces that destroyed it. Set mostly in a back-to-the-land hippie community, the book centers on Bit, the first baby born to the settlers. It follows him through childhood and adolescence, and checks in on him on the cusp of middle age, a single father in New York City. Bit’s a sensitive soul, and I felt for him, especially when the story tracked his relationship with his first lover and later runaway wife, the self-destructive Helle. Groff’s expressive use of language, her feel for the natural world, and her deep sensitivity to the psychology of her characters marks this book as a classic not to be missed.
A staggering portrait of a crumbling utopia, this "timeless and vast" novel filled with the "raw beauty" beautifully depicts an idyllic commune in New York State -- and charts its eventual yet inevitable downfall (Janet Maslin, The New York Times). NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Timeless and vast... The raw beauty of Ms. Groff's prose is one of the best things about Arcadia. But it is by no means this book's only kind of splendor."---Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Even the most incidental details vibrate with life Arcadia wends a harrowing path back to a fragile, lovely place you can…
What were America's first prisons like? How did penal reformers, prison administrators, and politicians deal with the challenges of confining human beings in long-term captivity as punishment--what they saw as a humane intervention?
The Deviant Prison centers on one early prison: Eastern State Penitentiary. Built in Philadelphia, one of the…
As a former Human Resources executive I’m fascinated by the history of women in the workforce, especially in jobs that have traditionally been held by men. I was first drawn into the topic as a writer of WWII novels. Through memoirs, autobiographies, and oral history interviews I learned firsthand about women who entered the workforce to take the place of men who were serving in combat or the defense industry. In an effort to spotlight the women of this era as well as those who have gone before, many of my protagonists hold unusual jobs such as spy, war correspondent, pilot, doctor, restaurant owner, and gold miner.
Having worked for a jewelry designer in the Washington, DC area, The Gem Thief caught my eye. The story took me back to my days in the shop (good memories!), and the author has obviously done her research, because her accuracy is impeccable. I liked all of the characters, but I bonded with one of the secondary characters so much that I felt we could be friends in “real life.” I’ve been to New York City often, so I also enjoyed revisiting the city. The book was both comfortable because of all the associations to “past lives,” and exciting as I turned pages wondering what would happen next.
2018 HONORABLE Mention for Romance Forward INDIES Winners Gracie Miller is a small-town girl who has landed her dream job in New York City. As jewelry designer for one of the most prestigious jewelers in the world, she completed a particularly stunning piece, a custom setting for a large pink diamond. But when her billionaire client Mrs. Katsaros comes to repair a minor issue with the setting, Gracie is horrified to realize it is not the ring she created. Someone has forged her design, and the priceless diamond is gone.
Mrs. Katsaros has no desire to bring media attention to…
My father used to take me to watch the Twins play at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, a twenty-minute drive from our house in suburban Minneapolis. As soon as the Twins announced their schedule each year, he would buy tickets for the doubleheaders. Our favorites were the twilight doubleheaders, when we watched one game by daylight, and the other under the night sky. Baseball was pure to me then: played outdoors on real grass. Seated beside my dad during those twin bills, I felt his love for the game seep into me and take root. All these years later, almost two decades after his death, that love remains strong.
I love the books that go behind the scenes and show us more of a story we thought we knew. This is one of those. Josh Prager pulls back the curtain on Bobby Thomsen’s "shot heard round the world" with startling revelations from his research.
I was left with mixed emotions and uncertainty about a feat that had initially appeared nothing but heroic.
This is the untold story of the secret scandal behind baseball's most legendary moment:The Shot Heard Round the World. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year.
At 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The ball sailed over the left field wall and into history. The Giants won the pennant. That moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—reverberated from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where hitter and pitcher forever turned into hero and goat. It was also in that…
I moved to New York City right after college, hungry to escape from the homogeneity of a small New England town. I wanted nothing more than to be surrounded by people of all races and nations, languages, and walks of life, and to have easy access to some of the greatest cultural institutions of the world. New York can be hard and unforgiving, but there is no place like it. I love living here.
As much about ideas and the nature of friendship as it is about the city, this slim volume captures, better than any other I know, the visceral feel of living in New York. Fiercely independent, Gornick wanders the city’s streets in the “habit of loneliness,” ever watching, listening, and thinking. A child of working-class Jewish immigrants, she grew up in the Bronx in the 1940s and 1950s, and writes in a funny, smart, rueful, and tell-it-like-it-is voice that is unmistakably New York.
A contentious, deeply moving ode to friendship, love, and urban life in the spirit of Fierce Attachments
A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same. Running steadily through the book is Vivian Gornick's exchange of more than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness,…
Pioneer Paddles of the Colonial South
by
William D. Auman,
Award-winning novelist William Auman, author of If Trees Could Testify..., takes the reader on a time-traveling odyssey featuring 345 bodies of water in six states within the historical context through which they unfold.
Journey into remaining Colonial-era wilderness with stories of pirate treasure, epic frontiersmen, Indigenous Peoples, and Revolutionary…
I was drawn to the topic because I love everything about New York City. But, I also loved how the topic seemed at odds with itself. New York City wildlife felt like a contradiction of terms. Sure, there might be some rats, pigeons, and cockroaches here, but that was it. Well I was very wrong. Learning about the city’s natural history and legacy of wildlife allowed me to learn about the city in a whole new way. It’s also a great comeback story and it has been so inspiring to learn – and see! – how effective a few short decades of environmental regulations have been in making this a greener city.
This field guide is a thorough almanac of all the surprising critters that call New York City home. Each page carries with it historical context along with biological information and gorgeous illustrations of each individual species. This comprehensive catalog of New York City’s flora and fauna is a must-have for any urban wildlife devotee.
New York just might be the most biologically diverse city in temperate America. The five boroughs sit atop one of the most naturally rich sites in North America, directly under the Atlantic migratory flyway, at the mouth of a 300-mile-long river, and on three islands-Manhattan, Staten, and Long. Leslie Day, a New York City naturalist, reveals this amazing world in her Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City. Combining the stunning paintings of Mark A. Klingler with a variety of photographs and maps, this book is a complete guide for the urban naturalist-with tips on identifying the…
