Title: Lab Girl
Author: Hope Jahren
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Genre: Debut memoir
Lab Girl released earlier this spring and recently appeared on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list. It’s been reviewed by Michiko Kakutani of the Times, who wrote, “Vladimir Nabokov once observed that ‘a writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.’ The geobiologist Hope Jahren possesses both in spades.”
When asked what helped her book land on the bestseller list, author and professor of geobiology Hope Jahren said: “Lab Girl was written with a great deal of respect for the reader, and I think it shows. I experimented exhaustively as I wrote each sentence, figuring out the first-, second-, third-best choices with respect to each verb, adjective, and adverb. I read each paragraph out loud several times while fixing upon its best construction, and judged by how it sounded to the reader’s ear. I think readers can tell when they are reading something that was crafted with care, and crafted just for them, and that they respond to it in kind.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
