Immortality

Henrietta Lacks died of cancer in 1951, yet in the years since then she has made important contributions to the discovery of the polio vaccine, to many cancer treatments, to gene mappping and cloning. All this made possible - without her knowledge or consent - by her "immortal' cells; the first such human cells grown in culture. The New York Times book reviewer said The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is "one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I've read in a very long time. A thorny and provocative book about cancer, racism, scientific ethics and crippling poverty, [it] also floods over you like a narrative dam break, as if someone had managed to distill and purify the more addictive qualities of "Erin Brockovich," Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Andromeda Strain. More than 10 years in the making, it feels like the book Ms. Skloot was born to write. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has brains and pacing and nerve and heart, and it is uncommonly endearing."