Like radium itself, Radioactive glows with energy.” - Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, winner of the Pulitzer Prize Lauren Redniss has created a book that is both vibrant history and a work of art. “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 The word ‘luminous’ is a critic’s cliché, to be avoided at all costs, but it fits.” - New York Times Redniss’s text is long, literate and supple…Her drawings are both vivid and ethereal…Radioactive is serious science and brisk storytelling.

“ a deeply unusual and forceful thing to have in your hands. “One of the most beautiful books-as-object that I’ve ever seen.” - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love Radioactive is an incisive look at science’s greatest partnership.” - Vogue “ sumptuously illustrated visual biography…. “ excellent new book.” - Robert Krulwich, NPR 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 jeopardized her second Nobel Prize, 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 technology today.įreshman Common Read: University of Cincinnati, Texas A&M Commerce Critical Praise Lauren Redniss has created a fascinating and deeply moving visual biography that walks students through the story of Marie Curie's life, which was marked by both extraordinary scientific discover and dramatic personal trauma.

Radioactive by Lauren Redniss