It’s October! It’s the month of Halloween, and more importantly it is Black History Month. It is so important to treat yourself and this week what better way to spoil both you and your shelf than to purchase a beautiful literary story celebrating black history.

Based on the true story of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot sheds light on a lady who unwittingly changed the course of medicine. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of the title character’s impact following a diagnoses with cervical cancer at the age of 31 and her subsequent death in 1951. Little did her family and friends know that her cancerous cells were harvested without permission to be scientifically investigated.

Known to scientists as HeLa, her cells aided in advances in medicine for chemotherapy, the polio vaccine, cloning and gene mapping. This book is so important to read as it reinstates Henrietta Lacks as the kind, pretty and loving person she was. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks deserves to be treated as a work of American history with its scope large,its prose intimate, and its deeper purpose to showcase scientific discovery and human consequences.

Image: thefishla