Posts tagged lit
“She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.” - Neil Gaiman
(Source: , via unejeunedemoiselle)
But I tell you one thing, I don’t want to be immortal if it mean living forever, cause then everybody else just die and get old in front of you while you stay the same, and that’s just sad.
‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ by Rebecca Skloot
I’ve just finished reading ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ by Rebecca Skloot and wow, what can I say? It’s a fascinating story that links science with a family saga, that will both shock you, intrigue you and at times, make you feel incredibly emotional.
The book tells the story of Henrietta Lacks a poor, black, tobacco farmer whose cancer cells, taken without her knowledge, became the first “immortal cells” to be grown in a lab. These cells were then used to create vaccines for diseases such as polio and in studies to do with nuclear warfare and space travel. Without Henrietta Lacks many of the advances in modern medicine would never have happened and yet her story remains practically unknown. That is, until now.
Author Rebecca Skloot spent over ten years researching Henrietta and her cells. Meeting her family and forming an especially close bond with Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who never knew her mother, having only been a baby when she died. Now for the first time the story of Henrietta and her cells has been told.
The book is incredibly moving especially when Skloot takes Deborah and her younger brother to see their mother’s cells in a lab. But it also poses some difficult questions. Like should Henrietta’s family have received a portion of the money their mother’s cells have made since they were taken and how much ownership do we have over parts of our bodies when they are no longer a part of us? These questions may never be answered definitively, but Skloot provides a conclusion that is both satisfying and thought provoking.
‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ is not only a story about scientific discovery but about family. About children who grew up without a mother only to struggle with the revelation that a part of her was still alive somewhere and about an extraordinary woman who changed the world of science forever. A must read.
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.” - Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
when I come back
we will go out together,
we will walk out together among
the ten thousand things,
each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages
of dying is love.
Libraries are a force for good. They wear capes. They fight evil. They don’t get upset when you don’t send them a card on their birthdays. (Though they will charge you if you’re late returning a book.) They serve communities. The town without a library is a town without a soul. The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance. Libraries are the torch of the world, illuminating the path when it feels too dark to see. We mustn’t allow that torch to be extinguished.
(Source: libbabray.com, via prettybooks)
Why can’t people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?
(via prettybooks)
A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
(Source: aurelle, via prettybooks)
Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.
I’d watch it.
You’re someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness.
“The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all?” - David Nicholls, One Day
The Hunger Games
Having seen all the hype on the internet about the casting for the upcoming movie version of ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins, I’ve been meaning to read the book for a while. On Sunday I finally sat down and devoured the book within a few hours. Seriously it was great! I’m not usually into dystopian novels, but there was something about this one that meant I couldn’t put it down.
The initial premise about reality show in which teens are pitted against each other to fight until the death really intrigued me and the whole way through I had the eerie feeling that this could one day become a reality. The way the so-called ‘Gamemakers’ manipulate the players into fighting each other was not unlike the way producers engineer the events of so-called reality shows like Jersey Shore (granted Snooki and co aren’t killing each other, yet). It was thrilling, tense and at times, tragically sad.
Many articles I’ve read about the books have compared them to The Twilight Saga novels, but honestly, Twilight is nothing compared to these. The Hunger Games are more exciting, more interesting and have a female lead who you actually care about. I’m looking forward to seeing the movie version next year and think Jennifer Lawrence is going to be brilliant.
Great novels are above all great fairy tales… literature does not tell the truth but makes it up.
