Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout - Hardcover

Redniss, Lauren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061351326 ISBN 13: 9780061351327

Publisher: It Books, 2011

Synopsis

The name Marie Curie is enshrined in every schoolchild's mind as one of the earliest and most inspirational female pioneers in the history of science. Yet the rich, vivid, and romantic story of Marya Salome Sklodwska - the young Polish national who discovered radioactivity - has been lost to time ...until now, in the pages of this stunning, wildly creative, and uniquely moving visual biography by one of the most creative artistic talents working today. Lauren Redniss, a celebrated "New York Times" illustrator and storyteller, has thrown herself deeply and passionately into researching the story of the real Marie Curie; of her passionate and tragic romantic life; and, of the century of scientific innovation and controversy that sprang from her discovery of radium and went on to change the course of world history. Drawing on her original archival research in Europe and the United States - and a host of new interviews with Curie family members and scientists who carry on the Curie tradition - Redniss has created a fascinating and deeply moving book. A visually stunning work of illustrative art, "Radioactive" walks the reader through the story of Curie's own life, which was marked by both extraordinary scientific discovery and dramatic personal trauma - from her romantic partnership with Pierre, through his tragic decline from radium poisoning and death in a traffic accident, to the scandalous affair with another fellow scientist that almost cost her second Nobel Prize. But it also casts an eye forward, to survey the changes wrought by Curie's discovery of radioactivity-illuminating the path from the Curie laboratory past the bright red mushroom clouds in the Nevada desert through Three Mile Island and the advance in radiation therapy and nuclear power today. Whether young or old, scientific novice or expert, no one will fail to be moved by Lauren Redniss' eerie and wondrous evocation of one of history's most intriguing figures.

About this title

Review:

“[An] excellent new book.” (Robert Krulwich, NPR)

“[A] sumptuously illustrated visual biography....Radioactive is an incisive look at science’s greatest partnership.” (Vogue)

“One of the most beautiful books-as-object that I’ve ever seen.” (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

“[Radioactive is] a deeply unusual and forceful thing to have in your hands. Ms. Redniss’s text is long, literate and supple...Her drawings are both vivid and ethereal...Radioactive is serious science and brisk storytelling. The word ‘luminous’ is a critic’s cliché, to be avoided at all costs, but it fits.” (New York Times)

“Radioactive is quite unlike any book I have ever read—part history, part love story, part art work and all parts sheer imaginative genius.” (Malcolm Gladwell)

“Absolutely dazzling. Lauren Redniss has created a book that is both vibrant history and a work of art. Like radium itself, Radioactive glows with energy.” (Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

“Radioactive offer innumerable wonders. Colors suddenly bloom into tremendous feeling, history contracts into a pair of elongated figures locked in an embrace, then expands again in an explosive rush of words. In this wholly original book about passion and discovery Lauren Redniss has invented her own unique form.” (Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love)

From the Back Cover:

In 1891, 24 year old Marie, née Marya Sklodowska, moved from Warsaw to Paris, where she found work in the laboratory of Pierre Curie, a scientist engaged in research on heat and magnetism. They fell in love. They took their honeymoon on bicycles. They expanded the periodic table, discovering two new elements with startling properties, radium and polonium. They recognized radioactivity as an atomic property, heralding the dawn of a new scientific era. They won the Nobel Prize. Newspapers mythologized the couple's romance, beginning articles on the Curies with "Once upon a time . . . " Then, in 1906, Pierre was killed in a freak accident. Marie continued their work alone. She won a second Nobel Prize in 1911, and fell in love again, this time with the married physicist Paul Langevin. Scandal ensued. Duels were fought.

In the century since the Curies began their work, we've struggled with nuclear weapons proliferation, debated the role of radiation in medical treatment, and pondered nuclear energy as a solution to climate change. In Radioactive, Lauren Redniss links these contentious questions to a love story in 19th Century Paris.

Radioactive draws on Redniss's original reporting in Asia, Europe and the United States, her interviews with scientists, engineers, weapons specialists, atomic bomb survivors, and Marie and Pierre Curie's own granddaughter.

Whether young or old, scientific novice or expert, no one will fail to be moved by Lauren Redniss's eerie and wondrous evocation of one of history's most intriguing figures.

About this edition

• Publisher: It Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0061351326
• ISBN 13: 9780061351327
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208