Lab Girl is a book about work and about love, and the mountains that can be move
d when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren's remarkable st
ories: about the discoveries she has made in her lab, as well as her struggle to
get there; about her childhood playing in her father's laboratory; about how la
b work became a sanctuary for both her heart and her hands; about Bill, the bril
liant, wounded man who became her loyal colleague and best friend; about their f
ield trips - sometimes authorised, sometimes very much not - that took them from
the Midwest across the USA, to Norway and to Ireland, from the pale skies of No
rth Pole to tropical Hawaii; and about her constant striving to do and be her be
st, and her unswerving dedication to her life's work. Visceral, intimate, glorio
usly candid and sometimes extremely funny, Jahren's descriptions of her work, he
r intense relationship with the plants, seeds and soil she studies, and her insi
ghts on nature enliven every page of this thrilling book.
