Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name. She gained world renown at age thirty-six, when she received the first of her two Nobel Prizes. Two years later, suddenly a widow with two young children, she took over the laboratory where she had worked alongside her husband and also assumed his teaching position at the University of Paris, becoming the first female professor ever to lecture there.
By her example and the extent of her fame, she drew aspiring physicists and chemists to her. Women arrived at the Radium Institute from eastern and western Europe, from Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and as far away as Canada to work or study under Mme. Curie.
My new book, The Elements of Marie Curie, combines her story—scientist, mother, mentor, war hero—with their stories of love, loss, and radioactivity.
REVIEWS
“Sobel writes elegantly about science, unspooling Curie’s pursuits in the lab like a mystery.”
—Kate Zernike, The New York Times
“In her well-researched and compellingly written book, Sobel recounts how working with Curie raised the profile of many other pioneering women in radiochemistry and atomic physics. Sobel’s explanations of the science are crisp and accessible… There’s enough detail to permit chemists and physicists to peer over Curie’s shoulder in the lab. Sobel gives us a chance to share in the excitement and delight of the work that made Curie and her dozens of scientific offspring glow so brightly.”
—Michelle Francl, Nature
The Wall Street Journal | 10.4.24
“Ms. Sobel’s book deftly explores the science of chemistry and the history of radium, while also following the remarkable thread of Marie Curie’s achievements—which came at a high personal cost. But what sets Ms. Sobel’s biography apart isn’t the timeline or the events of her subject’s life; it’s those women of science whose lives intersected with Curie’s, a cast of brilliant researchers and thinkers that the author skillfully weaves into her narrative. They are the “elements” of Marie Curie’s lab.... She drew them to her, and through her, they would draw others, lighting a path for women in science.”
—Brandy Schillace, The Wall Street Journal
Booklist Review of the Day | 8.29.24
“Preeminent science writer Sobel (The Glass Universe, 2016) brings forward a new array of female scientists in this vital portrait of Marie Curie and the women who joined her in her world-altering Paris laboratory…As Sobel vividly tells their tales of valor, diligence, and brilliance, she fuses elements human and scientific to create a dramatic group portrait encompassing passion, struggle, poignancy, and triumph.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
Publishers Weekly 2024 Fall Announcement Issue
A “Top-Ten” Pick in Science
“A lucid, literate biography, celebrating a scientific exemplar who, for all her fame, deserves to be better known.”
Published on October 8, 2024. Now available to order.
INTERVIEW
On Mic Podcast with Jordan Rich | 10.14.24 Meet the best-selling author Dava Sobel who writes stories about science and the people who have unlocked the world’s greatest mysteries. From her international hit “Longitude” to the Pulitzer Prize finalist “Galileo’s Daughter” she has woven compelling tales about people, many of them women, who have changed our world for the better. Today it’s a conversation about her newest project, “The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science.”