Sunday, July 8, 2012

On Goals - Volume 2

Lest my readers fear, let me offer this information:  My goal (40 books, 40 movies [HA!] in my 40th year) is a calendar year goal.  I am not trying to reach this goal by my birthday (which looms ominously).  I am shooting for 40 books by December 31, and I'm nearly halfway through the books, and just over halfway through the year, so I'm feeling fine about it all.

Also, as has been previously discussed, my contribution to the movie side of my goal has been woefully inadequate.  To date, I still have only watched three movies this year.  Three!  Three movies in more than 6 months!  

If I could count episodes of The Family Guy towards my movie goal, I would have already knocked this one out of the park.  But that's not the goal I set for myself.  Aaaaaaanyway.  It has been pointed out that it's still POSSIBLE to watch 37 movies between now & December 31.  It would take commitment, and a definite change in my patterns.  But it's possible.

Stay tuned. 

Book #19 - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Though I haven't been in more than a year, I still consider myself a member of the women's book group at my church.  I follow what's on the book list, and sometimes even try to organize myself and my reading to get to a meeting.  Recently, the book group read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  I didn't make it to the meeting, but I did finally read / finish the book.

It's the (nonfiction) story behind the HeLa cells -- the most prolific human cell line ever propagated.  Henrietta Lacks was a black woman in Baltimore, MD, born in 1926, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Her physician biopsied her tumor, and used the biopsy not only to diagnose her cancer, but also as a research tool.  He realized quickly that her cells, unlike most human cells removed from a body, were incredibly vibrant: easy to reproduce, sustain, and work with.

Skloot does a good job making the story rich and interesting: she brings in family history, the background of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the evolution of medical testing in the United States (a particularly unsavory story), and the effect (or lack thereof) of this historic scientific phenomenon on Lacks' surviving family.  

So the fact that it was a slog for me to get through the book is not a testament to the book, but rather to my weaknesses as a reader.  I just love a novel.  I just do.  I always feel virtuous after I read a nonfiction book, as though I've just had a vitamin, but I don't feel satisfied.  

Book #18 - The Magician King

I am behind on blogging, but am still reading, so fear not, fearless readers.

I read the sequel to The Magicians, which is The Magician King, by Lev Grossman.  I loved the Magicians (for reasons you can read in the previous post...), and The Magician King just blew the lid off the first book. It was Awesome Squared.

If you are not a dyed-in-the-wool [read: obsessed] fan of the Narnia Chronicles, maybe you won't love these books as much as I did.  But I think they're better than just fan fiction; I think they're great, interesting, challenging, smart novels.

I've been trying to get my Dear Husband to read the first one, and I haven't yet formulated a convincing enough sales pitch, so if any of you have better ways of describing the awesome, please share.