Spoken from the Heart; Darkness; Mouse Guard Fall 1152; the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I'm falling behind again. What can I say? Things happen.
Moving on. "Spoken from the Heart" by former first lady Laura Bush was a very enjoyable autobiography, although I did find her mother bear defending her cubs type of tone when talking about her husband a bit tiresome. I totally understand why she feels the need to defend him, and I think their love for each other is amazing and special, but I also think that most people open minded enough to read her book are not going to be that insanely critical of former president Bush. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but at any rate, I found her to be a warm and personable author and I enjoyed hearing about her perspective on her years in the White House. The time after 9/11 was especially terrifying. I can't imagine how awful it must have been to have been living through that kind of high alert.
"Darkness" was a collection of not very good short stories edited by Ellen Datlow. I'm just not a big short stories person, and none of them were really all that memorable, except for the one by Stephen King, which I of course had read before.
"Mouse Guard Fall 1152" is a graphic novel by David Peterson. I wasn't terribly impressed by this one. The artwork was nice, but the story was so thin and juvenile compared to the other graphic novels I've been reading lately. It only took me 20 minutes to get through it. I know I read fast, but c'mon. I gotta have a little more substance than that. And the little mice as the heroes just didn't cut it with me. Although it was funny to see them battle a snake and some lobsters.
Rebecca Skloot's "Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" was amazing. Henrietta died in 1951 from cervical cancer. Before she died, doctors biopsied and saved a piece of the tumor growing in her, and it began to grow and divided, and her cells haven't stopped growing and dividing since, the first cells scientists were ever able to keep alive for so long. Her cells have been used all over the world to find cures for diseases and study how cells form, grow, change, react to certain toxins and outside influences, etc. It's impossible to calculate just how much advancement has been made in the field of medicine based on Henrietta's cells. Absolutely, utterly fascinating, and not the least bit over my head with the medical jargon, which is usually hard to comprehend.