• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
• The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
• The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr
• The Tortilla Curtain by T. C. Boyle

This true story began with cells taken from a tumor that killed a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks in 1951. Most human cells live for only a limited time in laboratory conditions, but these cells apparently live and multiply forever. These remarkable cells, known as HeLa cells, are now used by researchers all over the world and have been responsible for significant scientific advances as well as the creation of major industries. Her children today, however, cannot afford the health insurance needed to receive health treatments that have been made possible by their mother's cells, which were taken without her knowledge.

The author's web site provides lots of resources for book group discussion, including the author's bio.

Wikipedia articles on the book and the author.

Q & A with the author.

Public radio interview with the author.

The fascinating results of a Google search for "HeLa cells".

HeLa cells can be purchased over the internet. You can also buy HeLa/mouse hybrid cells.

An article by Rebecca Skloot herself about George Gey (pronounced "guy"), the remarkable and selfless scientist who first realized the potential of HeLa cells.

The Human Genetic Cell Repository is sponsored by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

A news release with a photo of a large human cell storage facility.

Every March we open our meeting to the general public to discuss the book chosen for the "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book..." program by Writers & Books.  This year's choice, The Madonnas of Leningrad, shifts between two settings: The Hermitage art museum during the siege of Leningrad during World War II, and present-day Seattle.  Marina, who worked as a docent in the museum, has Alzeimer's, and her memory confuses her by shifting abruptly between the festivities of her granddaughter's wedding and the deprivations of the past.

Writers & Books always provides a good interview with the author and a great discussion guide.

The Hermitage (pronounced er-mi-tazh) has a wonderful web site that includes virtual tours of the museum. Pick a floor and room, and then wait for the virtual tour image to load, which can take several seconds. When Marina was on watch duty on the roof, she would have seen this view.

The Hermitage's web site has a section about the museum during the siege.  Joseph Orbeli, the director of the museum, was a real person.

The trailer for "The Russian Ark," an acclaimed film that takes place entirely within the Hermitage.

The novel mentions (page 130) the paintings that Stalin quietly sold to the west, several of them becoming the nucleus of the National Art Gallery in Washington. Here is more about the Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings.

A drawing of a bomb shelter beneath the Hermitage. It is one of a series by Alexander Nikolsky, who is mentioned in the novel on page 127. He was an architect who lived in those shelters during the siege.

Wikipedia's article on the siege of Leningrad.

Interview with the author on public radio.

Marina's descriptions of paintings usually enhance something else in the novel. The page numbers below refer to the paperback version of the novel.

• The Luncheon by Velasquez, page 1. The novel opens with this painting of a simple but ample lunch.
• The Stolen Kiss by Fragonard, page 12. Its description precedes the story of Marina's courtship.
• Danae by Rembrandt, pages 90 and 98. In this painting, Danae looks toward Zeus, who is out of sight. Between those two pages Marina herself encounters Zeus, who is mentioned again on pages 102 and 107.
• The Holy Family by Raphael, pages 125 and 221. The painter made them look like real people. Marina lost both of her parents when she was young.
• The Benois Madonna by Da Vinci, pages 78 and 107. Marina sees Anya praying to this Madonna and later herself asks this Madonna for help. That night she has a strange experience.
• The Litta Madonna by Da Vinci, page 80. Marina sees the Christ child in this painting move and hears him burp.
• The Conestabile Madonna by Raphael, pages 125 and 222. Marina detects a previous image on the canvas that faintly shows beneath the paint of the current image, much as her memories of Leningrad bleed into her present-day life in Seattle. During the seige, an elderly room attendent has a confused memory about this painting.
• St. Luke Drawing the Virgin by van der Weyden, page 218. According to Marina, this painting "isn't really about a Madonna. The real miracle is the painting itself, which lifts us and carries us away to this magical world."

Set in San Francisco in 1953, this story is about a housewife who struggles to understand her husband after a stranger appears at their door.  The book's first sentence is, "We think we know the ones we love."

Here are several reviews of the novel.  The one by John Updike in the New Yorker is especially interesting.  You should read the book first because these reviews reveal things that are intended to surprise the reader.  (Perhaps we could say, "We think we know the fictional characters we love.")

A 30-minute audio recording of an unusually deep discussion with the author about this novel.

The author's web site.

When Holland was hiding in the attic to evade the draft, he memorized the poetry of Countee Cullen, an African-American poet and a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Two poems that Holland quoted to Pearlie were For a Poet ("I have wrapped my dreams...") and I have a rendezvous with Life.

The plight of Ethel Rosenberg is a significant background event in the novel.

The starvation experiment that Buzz participated in really did happen, and some of the subjects really did react the way that Buzz did.

On page 158 Pearlie visits the Black Cat Bar, which played an important role in the development of gay rights in California.

This true story of the rediscovery of The Taking of Christ, a painting by Caravaggio that had been lost for almost two centuries. The book provides insights into art history, the techniques of art restoration and the petty jealousies of art scholarship.

Several reviews of the book

Wikipedia has an article on Caravaggio with images of several of his paintings. Many more of his paintings are here (click to enlarge them). There is also a separate article on The Taking of Christ, the painting that is the subject of this book. Caravaggio inspired a number of other painters, called the Caravaggisti.

If you want to know more about Caravaggio, here is a lively, ten-minute PBS video interview with the author of a recent biography.

An interview with Francesca Cappelletti, who says the book accurately portrays her

The Wikipedia article on Denis Mahon and a photograph of him in a news article about his death

Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa found clues about the location of the painting while searching the archives of the Antici-Mattei Palace.

Benedetti standing in front of The Taking of Christ at the The National Gallery of Ireland

This book begins with the story of a disagreement about which one of two paintings of John the Baptist was truly painted by Caravaggio and which was a copy. Here is the version owned by the Doria Pamphili family, which Roberto Longhi championed, and here (I think) is the version favored by Sir Denis Mahon. Caravaggio also painted other likenesses of John the Baptist in very different poses.

In this novel, a Mexican couple slips across the border and lives precariously in a camp near Los Angeles. In a nearby gated community lives a liberal couple who moved there to be close to nature but who find that nature is sometimes too much for them, especially the coyotes who threaten their pets. They also develop a strong fear of the nearby homeless Mexicans. The lives of the two couples intertwine in unhappy ways.

This interview with the author about the book appeared in the University of Southern California newspaper.

This 21-minute video interview with the author about the novel provides insights about the author's intentions.

The author's web site

The New York Times review had both positive and negative things to say about the novel.

The author has verified that Candido is named after Voltaire's fictional character Candide, whose optimism likewise is battered by painful reality.

Wikipedia reports that "Approximately 3 to 5 pets attacked by coyotes are brought into the Animal Urgent Care hospital of south Orange County (California) each week, the majority of which are dogs, since cats typically do not survive the attacks."

There really is a gated community near Topanga Canyon in California; it's name is Arroyo Grande, not Arroyo Blanco, the fictional name in the book. In this Google Maps depiction, the stream bed is to the left of Highway 27. The gated community is in the upper right of the screen, with the gate at the intersection of Viewridge Road and N. Summit Pointe Drive. Here are some houses for sale in that community.