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Neither Snow nor Rain….

Written on: February 8th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts

Will prevent us from bringing the Sunday reviews to you! And by the way, that’s not really the motto of the Postal Service (click here for the full story from the USPS Historian).

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot sympathetically examines a complex tale of medical ethics, scientific progress, and the human aspect of both. HeLa, the cell line developed by scientists from the subject’s cervical cancer have revolutionized medicine, and have been used in medical research for decades without the consent or, for a long time, the knowledge of Henrietta Lack or her family. As her daughter notes “I would like some health insurance so I don’t got to pay all that money every month for drugs my mother cells probably helped make.” You can read a transcript of an interview with the author at this link from NPR.

• Where the Love of God Hangs Out by Amy Bloom is a short story collection characterized by “beautifully wrought prose, with spunky humor and a flair for delectably eccentric details.”
• Don DeLillo’s Point Omega is a return to form by the dazzlingly creative author, whose recent offerings have failed to satisfy.
• Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n Roll by David Kirby presents its subject as “a living rebuke to the ruthlessly segregated world in which he grew up.”
• William Boyd’s Ordinary Thunderstorms is a comedy of identity, of a sort- a Rendell-like thriller reimagined to tell the story of modern London and internet culture.
• Jesus, Jobs, and Justice is a long-overdue work that “details the contributions of black women to almost every important aspect of the struggle for racial justice”