women in science | Book Girl & Little Bear

Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Read

It’s great when a popular new book lives up to the hype. Atmosphere is a thrilling ride, and a compulsive read. Joan Goodwin is an astronomer, a professor of physics and astronomy, when she applies to be a NASA astronaut at the beginning of the space shuttle program. She doesn’t get an interview the first time, but is selected for the second group of astronaut candidates, along with several other women. Her class of astronaut candidates includes pilot Hank, brilliant mission specialist Lydia, Griff, Donna, and Vanessa, an aeronautical engineer and pilot. Vanessa wants to fly a space shuttle, but only military pilots were eligible and, like almost all women pilots at the time, Vanessa was a commercial pilot.

A couple of the characters are inspired by NASA astronauts Sally Ride and Anna Fisher. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, kept her personal life very private until she died of cancer in 2012, then had her obituary include recognition of Tam Elizabeth O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years. Anna Fisher married another astronaut candidate, waited months to announce her pregnancy, went back to work the week after giving birth, and flew on space shuttle Discovery when her daughter was 15 months old. One female character in the book conceals a pregnancy, and another has a secret girlfriend, which could lose her the necessary security clearance to be assigned a shuttle mission.

The only really unlikable character in Atmosphere is Joan’s sister Barbara, who demands frequent backup from Joan to care for her daughter, Frances, and doesn’t come to her first launch. Fortunately, Frances and Joan are very close. Joan is challenged by motion sickness, but perseveres, goes into space, and later becomes a CapCom, communicating with astronauts from NASA’s Mission Control Center. As we learn at the beginning of the story, Joan is the CapCom when several members of her candidate class fly aboard the (fictional) shuttle Navigator, and all does not go well for their mission. Joan cares deeply about everyone on board, making the crisis even more challenging for her. Exciting and moving, this fast-paced thriller has a big heart. I’ve read Reid’s Malibu Rising, and appreciate how all of her novels are very distinct from each other.

Brenda

The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines by Cassandra Leah Quave

This is a compelling memoir about a remarkable scientist. Cassandra Leah Quave, PhD, is an ethnobotanist who is a tenured professor of Dermatology and Human Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and the curator of their herbarium. Every summer she and her family travel the world with her students to search for rare plant specimens that may have antimicrobial or other medicinal uses, and then process the plants for the herbarium. Over her career, she has traveled to the Amazon in Peru, Florida, a Mediterranean island, and to Ginestra in southern Italy, where she met her Spanish Italian husband, Marco.

An early staph infection sparked Quave’s interest in medicine, and a prosthetic leg has made her field research even more challenging. She and her husband are raising three children and a nephew, and cared for her grandmother. Quave makes a passionate plea for funding research of plants with possible medicinal value and for herbariums, and describes the daunting request process for grant money, and for tenure. I enjoy memoirs, especially of women scientists, and this is an outstanding true story. Her podcast is Foodie Pharmacology, and her websites are etnobotanica.us and cassandraquave.com.

Readalikes include Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, The Arbornaut by Margaret Lowman, and From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke.

Brenda