Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss Published by HarperCollins on December 21, 2010
Genres: Art / General, Biography & Autobiography / Historical, Biography & Autobiography / Science & Technology
Pages: 208
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780061351327In 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.
Maybe I’m just not educated enough in art techniques or history to understand, but I wasn’t a fan of the drawings from this book. They weren’t necessarily bad, it was just nothing that blew me away. At times I was more frustrated than anything else trying to read the text with all the colors in the way. I understand wanting to create an artpiece in a book, but the book should still be readable. At times, I had the book an inch from my face trying to read the text. It wasn’t helped by the typeface, Eusapia LR, which was created by Redniss based on the title pages of manuscripts at the NYPL. It’s named after Eusapia Palladino, the Italian spiritualist medium whose séances the Curies attended. This is definitely a fascinating history and nod to the Curies past, but the typeface itself was extremely difficult to read and wasn’t helped when the typeface was directly on the art work.
The story itself was quite interesting, even for those who know about Marie and Pierre. However, it’s a bit too disjointed, the going back and forth between the past and present was too jarring and not well transitioned between the time periods. Something a bit more cohesive would’ve made more sense and helped those who may not know enough about the Curies or about the science they studied. I definitely fall into the latter category.
It has made me want to know more about Marie Skłodowska-Curie and pick up other books about her life and research.
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