Lab Girl by Hope Jahren is a memoir by a brilliant scientist telling of her early days in her Dad’s lab in Minnesota, through her education and struggles to make it as a female botanist with a lab of her own. She shares the journey with her eccentric lab partner Bill and eventually a husband and son. She is now a tenured professor at the University of Hawaii.

Part personal history, part a love story to science and plants, this book will make you want to go out and plant a tree. I would have loved to learn more about the split with her parents, her mental health issues, her husband, son, students, she seems to care mostly about Bill; but since her lab is the focus of the book, I suppose it is understandable. Overall I found it beautifully written and at times painfully honest, I feel richer from having read this book. A recommended read.