AustLit

'In the opening of Lab Girl, her memoir about becoming a scientist, Hope Jahren exhorts her reader to look outside their window. Amidst buildings and sidewalks, they might catch a glimpse of something green: a tree. This is ‘one of the few things left in the world that humans cannot make,’ she says. She directs her reader to look closer and to focus on one leaf. Jahren, a geobiologist who analyses plant fossils, asks questions of leaves such as ‘How hydrated is the leaf? Limp? Wrinkled? Flush? What is the angle between the leaf and the stem?’ She turns back to the reader and tells them, ‘Now you ask a question about your leaf.’' (Introduction)