Laboratory Notebook

by J.A.V. Simson

In "Laboratory Notebook," readers are drawn into the heart of a scientific laboratory―or more than one―where scientists, technicians, and students probe mysteries, brew concoctions, and congeal dogma from limited data and occasional flashes of insight. But beneath the science lies a darker, more complex world, where reason can lose its foothold, where human frailty lies just beneath a smooth, coherent surface.Readers of this collection, especially those who have not trained in a working laboratory, might find the subject matter of these stories―and the descriptions of laboratory science―unfamiliar, even unsettling. For nearly four decades, I worked in this world. The lab became a home away from home. And I came to realize that the practitioners of science―avowedly dedicated to reason and to the experimental exploration of objective reality―were all too often self-serving and irrational. That is, they were―they are―human. Initially an unpleasant, even painful, surprise, it was a bit of truth I made peace with―in part by writing out my dismay and indignation. This group of short stories tries to capture such experiences. None of the people or events described in these stories is real or has happened as written. But the seed of each story was sown by an image of something that did happen, either to me, to a colleague or to a friend.

150 pages, Paperback

Published May 12, 2018

About the author

Jo Anne Valentine Simson, retired scientist and world traveler, taught anatomy and cell biology for three decades, both in the US and overseas. Her current writing combines a love of travel, a fascination with biology, and an obsession with human culture. Besides many scientific articles, she has published five books of nonfiction and two lections of short fiction,

Visit her website at http://javsimson.com/