Radioactive - by Lauren Redniss (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The National Book Award Finalist is now a major motion picture directed by Marjane Sartrapi, starring Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley.

"Vivid and ethereal."--The 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

A visual journey into the life of Marie Curie, as told through the dazzling collage style of acclaimed author and artist Lauren Redniss.

Radioactive is the mesmerizing, landmark illustrated biography of Marie Curie, by acclaimed author and artist Lauren Redniss. Through brilliant visual storytelling, Redniss walks us through Curie's life, which was marked by extraordinary scientific discovery and dramatic personal trauma--from her complex working and romantic relationship with Pierre Curie, to their discovery of two new scientific elements, to Pierre's tragic death, to Marie's two Nobel Prizes. A haunting and wondrous portrait of one of history's most intriguing figures, Radioactive combines archival photos, images, and clippings with dazzling line drawings and a compelling narrative to tell Curie's story. Far more than an art book or a graphic novel, Radioactive is a stunning visual biography and a true work of art.

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.

Review Quotes

"Lauren Redniss creates an entirely new genre of biography." - Nylon Magazine

"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

"[A] sumptuously illustrated visual biography....Radioactive is an incisive look at science's greatest partnership." - Vogue

"[An] excellent new book." - Robert Krulwich, NPR

"[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

"One of the most beautiful books-as-object that I've ever seen." - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

"Visually dazzling . . . a startlingly original graphic style." - Slate

"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