New members are always welcome. 12 Copies of The Immortal Life of Henerietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot \;will be a vailable for check out from the Montrose Library service desk one month pr ior to the book club meeting date. Please stop by the Montrose Library\, e mail \;montros elibrary@glendaleca.gov\, or call 818-548-2048 to reserve one of the 12 copies. If we run out of copies\, you'd like t o pick up a copy at another branch\, or you prefer a different book format \, \;you may request a copy here https:// glac.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S185C1876639. \;
\nBook Description:
\nHer name was Henrietta Lacks\, but scientists k now her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the sam e land as her slave ancestors\, yet her cells&mdash\;taken without her kno wledge&mdash\;became one of the most important tools in medicine: The firs t &ldquo\;immortal&rdquo\; human cells grown in culture\, which are still alive today\, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cel ls were vital for developing the polio vaccine\; uncovered secrets of canc er\, viruses\, and the atom bomb&rsquo\;s effects\; helped lead to importa nt advances like in vitro fertilization\, cloning\, and gene mapping\; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
\nYet Henrietta Lacks re mains virtually unknown\, buried in an unmarked grave.
\nHenrietta&r squo\;s family did not learn of her &ldquo\;immortality&rdquo\; until more than twenty years after her death\, when scientists investigating HeLa be gan using her husband and children in research without informed consent. A nd though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials\, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows\, the story of the Lacks family&mdash\ ;past and present&mdash\;is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans\, the birth of bioethics\, and the le gal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
\nOver the decade it took to uncover this story\, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family&mdash\;especially Henrietta&rsquo\;s daughter D eborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mot her? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so im portant to medicine\, why couldn&rsquo\;t her children afford health insur ance?
\nParking Information: Library parking is available on site. Parking entrance is behind the Fire Station and Library buildings on Sunset Ave. Visitors receive 3-hour free parking and 15 minutes drop off parking is available in front of the Library. Accessible parking and wheel chair ramp is available in the parking lot. For additional information abo ut this event\, please contact Montrose Library at 818-548-2048 or send us an email at \;Lib raryInfo@GlendaleCA.gov.
\nWe welcome persons with disa bilities to participate in all our programs and events. For accommodations requests\, please email \;LibraryInfo@GlendaleCA.gov& nbsp\;.
\nhttps://glendaleca.libnet.info/event/17211412 URL;VALUE=URI:https://glendaleca.libnet.info/event/17211412 ATTACH:https://static.libnet.info/images/events/glendaleca/A_Mont_Septembe rBookClub2026.png END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR