The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By Rebecca Skoot

Read an excerpt that was published in the New York Times on February 2, 2010

Purchase a copy from the campus bookstore.

Check it out from the Marymount Library

Order from Amazon

As a Publishers Weekly reviewer put it, “Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about faith, science, journalism, and grace. It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women—Skloot and Deborah Lacks—sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah’s mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells [HeLa cells].” This book provides fertile ground for interdisciplinary dialogue, from science, technology, engineering, medicine and nursing (and the business of these disciplines) to social justice, ethics, the arts and the humanities. And the book is very well written; it is the “winner of several awards, including the 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Excellence in Science Writing, [and it] was featured on over 60 critics’ best of the year lists.”

CBS Sunday Morning segment featuring Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks author Rebecca Skloot and members of the Lacks family. (March 15, 2010)

Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by more than 60 publications, including New York Times, The New Yorker, People, USA Today, O, The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a triumph of science writing . . . one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read.” - Wired.com

“I could not put the book down . . . The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully and movingly.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Beautifully crafted . . . Thanks to the author’s narrative skills, it is a tale that one experiences rather than reads.” - Science Magazine