
Lab Girl
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Hope Jahren
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By:
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Hope Jahren
About this listen
National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Autobiography, 2016.
An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime collaboration, in work and in life; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see and think about the natural world.
Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book might have been a revelatory treatise on plant life. Lab Girl is that, but it is also so much more. Because in it, Jahren also shares with us her inspiring life story, in prose that takes your breath away.
Lab Girl is a book about work, about love, and about the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren's remarkable stories: about the things she's discovered in her lab as well as how she got there; about her childhood - hours of unfettered play in her father's laboratory; about how she found a sanctuary in science and learned to perform lab work "with both the heart and the hands"; about a brilliant and wounded man named Bill, who became her loyal colleague and best friend; about their adventurous, sometimes rogue research trips, which take them from the Midwest all across the United States and over the Atlantic, from the ever-light skies of the North Pole to tropical Hawaii; and about her constant striving to do and be the best she could, never allowing personal or professional obstacles to cloud her dedication to her work.
Jahren's probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her insights on nature enliven every minute of this book. Lab Girl allows us to see with clear eyes the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal and the power within ourselves to face - with bravery and conviction - life's ultimate challenge: discovering who we are.
©2016 Hope Jahren (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Featured Article: The top 100 memoirs of all time
All genres considered, the memoir is among the most difficult and complex for a writer to pull off. After all, giving voice to your own lived experience and recounting deeply painful or uncomfortable memories in a way that still engages and entertains is a remarkable feat. These autobiographies, often narrated by the authors themselves, shine with raw, unfiltered emotion sure to resonate with any listener. But don't just take our word for it—queue up any one of these listens, and you'll hear exactly what we mean.
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- By Luke on 10-25-24
By: Camille Peri
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Leave Only Footprints
- My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park
- By: Conor Knighton
- Narrated by: Conor Knighton
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When Conor Knighton set off to explore America's "best idea", he worried the whole thing could end up being his worst idea. A broken engagement and a broken heart had left him longing for a change of scenery, but the plan he'd cooked up in response had gone a bit overboard in that department: Over the course of a single year, Knighton would visit every national park in the country, from Acadia to Zion.
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25% National Parks, 75% Author’s history
- By Ronald Hoye on 05-22-20
By: Conor Knighton
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My Broken Language
- A Memoir
- By: Quiara Alegría Hudes
- Narrated by: Quiara Alegría Hudes
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Quiara Alegría Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced their defiance in a tight North Philly kitchen. She was awed by her mother and aunts and cousins, but haunted by the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio — even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars.
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A voice that needed to be heard
- By Juan C. Velandia on 04-08-21
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Twilight Man
- Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire
- By: Liz Brown
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Liz Brown
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The unbelievable true story of Harrison Post - the enigmatic lover of one of the richest men in 1920s Hollywood - and the battle for a family fortune.
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Butte amateur historian
- By Josh M. Peck on 09-30-21
By: Liz Brown
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Into the Soul of the World
- My Journey to Healing
- By: Brad Wetzler
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself—and the world—again. Into the Soul of the World is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health.
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Wonderful story well told (and read)
- By Pamela Olson on 05-25-23
By: Brad Wetzler
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The Happy Bottom Riding Club
- The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes
- By: Lauren Kessler
- Narrated by: Hollis McCarthy
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Pancho Barnes was a force of nature, a woman who lived a big, messy, colorful, unconventional life. She ran through three fortunes, four husbands, and countless lovers. She outflew Amelia Earhart, outsmarted Howard Hughes, outdrank the Mexican Army, and outmaneuvered the US government. In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, award-winning author Lauren Kessler tells the story of a high-spirited, headstrong woman who was proud of her successes, unabashed by her failures, and the architect of her own legend.
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Never a dull moment
- By Matthew G A Vogelpohl on 06-19-24
By: Lauren Kessler
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The Witching Year
- A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft
- By: Diana Helmuth
- Narrated by: Diana Helmuth
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Diana Helmuth, thirty-three, is skeptical of organized religion. She is also skeptical of disorganized religion. But, more than anything, she is tired of God being dead. So, she decides to try on the fastest-growing, self-directed faith in America: Witchcraft. The result is 366 days of observation, trial, error, wit, and back spasms. Witches today are often presented as confident and finished, proud and powerful. Diana is eager to join them. She wants to follow all the rules, memorize all the incantations, and read all the liturgy. But there’s one glaring problem.
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Not for me
- By Moria Vulcanus on 01-06-25
By: Diana Helmuth
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The Color of Everything
- A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
- By: Cory Richards
- Narrated by: Cory Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The Color of Everything is a thrilling tale of risk and adventure, written by a man who has done it all: he’s stood at the top of the world, climbed imposing mountain faces alone in the dark and become the only American to summit an 8,000-meter peak in winter. But it is also the story of a tumultuous life--a stirring, lyrical memoir that captures the profound musings of a brilliant and unquiet mind grappling with the meaning of success, the cost of fame, addiction, and whether it is possible to outrun your demons.
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Best book in this genre since Into Thin Air
- By E. Vaughan on 12-04-24
By: Cory Richards
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Unwell Women
- Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World
- By: Elinor Cleghorn
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Elinor Cleghorn became an unwell woman 10 years ago. She was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. As Elinor learned to live with her unpredictable disease, she turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis. In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect.
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I have a fatal autoimmune disease too
- By The Iconoclast on 04-10-22
By: Elinor Cleghorn
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Cork Dork
- A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste
- By: Bianca Bosker
- Narrated by: Bianca Bosker
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn’t know much about wine - until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and seemingly superhuman sensory powers, she set out to uncover what drove their obsession and whether she, too, could become a “cork dork”.
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Interesting but not educational
- By Blake Brasher on 10-14-17
By: Bianca Bosker
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The Office
- The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History
- By: Andy Greene
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Holter Graham, P.J. Ochlan, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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When did you last hang out with Jim, Pam, Dwight, Michael, and the rest of Dunder Mifflin? It might have been back in 2013, when the series finale aired...or it might have been last night, when you watched three episodes in a row. But either way, long after the show first aired, it’s more popular than ever, and fans have only one problem - what to watch, or listen to, next. Fortunately, writer Andy Greene has that answer. In his brand-new oral history, The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, Greene takes listeners behind the scenes.
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Good, but some missing info for the true fan...
- By Molly on 03-29-20
By: Andy Greene
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Savor
- A Chef's Hunger for More
- By: Fatima Ali, Tarajia Morrell - contributor
- Narrated by: Nikhaar Kishnani, Deepa Samuel
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Fatima Ali won the hearts of viewers as the Fan Favorite of Bravo’s Top Chef in season fifteen. Twenty-nine years old, she was a dynamic, boundary-breaking chef and a bright new voice for change in the food world. After the taping wrapped and before the show aired, Fati was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. Not one to ever slow down or admit defeat, the star chef vowed to spend her final year traveling the world, eating delicious food, and making memories with her loved ones. But when her condition abruptly worsened, her plans were sidelined.
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Outstanding story & narration
- By Lynne on 09-14-24
By: Fatima Ali, and others
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Running Man
- A Memoir
- By: Charlie Engle
- Narrated by: Charlie Engle
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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After a decade-long addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol, Charlie Engle hit bottom with a near-fatal six-day binge that ended in a hail of bullets. As Engle got sober, he turned to running, which became his lifeline, his pastime, and his salvation. He began with marathons, and when marathons weren't far enough he began to take on ultramarathons, races that went for 35, 50, and sometimes hundreds of miles, traveling to some of the most unforgiving places on earth to race.
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Fantastic, But One Tiiiiny Thing--
- By Gillian on 11-09-16
By: Charlie Engle
Pure Gold--at the Top of a Very Long Personal Book List
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As the daughter of a father who was a physics and earth science teacher and a mother who instilled in her a love for literature, Jahren charmingly blends both of those passions in this remarkable memoir.
I have never heard a scientist of any field, speak so passionately about what they do as Jahren does here. She captured my imagination and I now have a new sense of respect for geobiologists, as well as for plants, what they mean for us and the viability of our planet.
Although her narration felt a little flat at first, she increasingly grew on me specially towards the 2nd and 3rd parts of the book.
Lab Girl was educational, enlightening, quirky and pretty funny.So here's hoping that many young women read this book and get inspired by Hope Jahren's life and her devotion to science.
Hurray for Lab Girl!
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My best wishes to you and your family.
Thank you, Hope!
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Amazing writer and narrator
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Beautifully written
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Perfect!
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tender hard Science
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I love this book so much I want to give copies to
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Trees
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Beautiful, poetic, and scientific
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