This is a memoir by the scientist (Wikipedia describes her as a geochemist and geobiologist) Hope Jahren. It details some of her upbringing and early exposure to science, and her studies and academic career. This is a very unusual sort of science book. It’s deeply personal, with Jahren talking frankly about the challenges of a scientific career, the downsides of working in academia, and her own uncertainties and anxieties. She seems to suffer from some mental health issues (unstated but possibly bipolar disorder), describing manic periods when she stays up all night working, and corresponding low periods.
The book also includes her significant professional partnership and collaborations with a character called Bill; their relationship is a major theme of this book. Jahren seems to have found the perfect professional partner in Bill. He is a strange character who, in Jahren’s telling, complements her strengths and weaknesses perfectly. He solves problems, goes along with the adventures Jahren drags him into, and maintains a resigned stoicism and acerbic wit at the craziness that results from allying himself with Jahren. As a pair, they are portrayed as rule breakers and chance takers; scrappy underdogs working within a scientific establishment that is reluctant to accept them. Although the adventures are sometimes wild and foolhardy (there is a long, rushed drive to a scientific conference that almost ends in disaster), they are told with both humour and a grim acceptance, and a few piercing one-liners from Bill to add levity. Despite how different they are from me and my approach to life and work, I found myself rooting for Hope and Bill in their quest for scientific success.
In between the anecdotes and adventures are some descriptions of how the plant world works, conveying the author’s wonder at the complexity and beauty of the natural world. I found these both educational and enjoyable to read. We also learn many of the details of the questions that Jahren is trying to answer through her work, and the studies she carries out in order to find answers.
The book also conveys the enjoyment of having a well-defined and detailed task to complete, such as collecting or processing samples, and analysing data. Science isn’t so much about the big ideas as it is about the attention to detail and discipline required to gather the experimental results that prove the big (or small) idea. This book describes that well.
This book describes science done for the passion of understanding our world, by people struggling for funding, receiving little in the way of financial reward, and trying to build lives and careers in the face of ongoing uncertainty and their own shortcomings as humans. Funding is a constant issue for their lab, and there are times when they come close to running out of money. This is science as it’s probably experienced by most professional scientists, at least those in academia: a constant struggle to raise funding and get any attention at all for your results.
I really enjoyed reading this perspective on the scientific life and found this a fun and enlightening read.