Belle loves to read. She recently read about the most interesting chemical reaction in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. It was about monodeoxygenated acetate 24, which was synthesized from the surprisingly stable lactol 23 using vinyl magnesium bromide and a sequence of bisacetylation and Tsuji reduction. The journal even had cool pictures like this reaction scheme!
Bian, M.; Wang, Z.; Xiong, X.; Sun, Y.; Matera, C.; Nicolaou, K. C.; Li, A. J. Am. Chem. Soc 2012, 134, 8078-8081.