Customer Reviews

Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series)

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As a woman scientist myself, and a long time admirer of the work of the Curies, I was struck by how much this book allows us to see beyond the legend, to the heart of Marie Curie. She emerges as a fascinating, brilliant individual of great depth, and a woman who endured great losses and emotional trials. Her character, emotional depth and her ability to follow her own moral code are what struck me most deeply. While her work has been greatly appreciated in the latter half of the 20th Century, the neglect and condemnation heaped on her in her day is not well known. It makes her accomplishments all the more remarkable and due our respect. This very fine biography should be on every scientists' bookshelf.

Growing up in Poland, being interested in science and scientists and loving biographies "made me" reach for Susan Quinn book, Marie Curie: A life. A life,...what an accurate title! The book is about one of the scientists of its (and even current) times, but it is titled modestly, "...:A life". This means, Susan Quinn introduced this intriguing woman as a normal, day to day character. Such "normalcy" did not take away my admiration and inspiration in my own professional pursuits. She, the author, simply presented an extra-ordinary woman in a very ordinary way, just as if she, Maria Sklodowska-Curie, were your or mine neighboor.

The language of the biography is percise but also nostalgic. Susan Quinn proved to be excellent researcher and "mood creator". She was able to write as if she was walking in Sklodowska-Curie shoes. She captured non-essential detail that took a reader right in the middle of the action. The details she used were accurate and true. It brought a Polish reader back to Warsaw. There, the streets were just as she described them, the smell and noise and politics of XIX and XX c Poland were so accuratly painted that as I continued reading it I could no longer remember I was in USA. I thought I were at Nowolipki street or Saxon Garden. Memories of my country history and history of scientific world were rekindled in my heart.

This is a very rich book. It will bring memories or create some for those who are not familiar with scientific revolution of Europe in late XIXc and early XXc. It is a book about heroism, loyalty, determination, passion, love and friendship. It is also a book about rejection in professional world. But most of all, this book is about victory of one extraordinary woman. This is the only woman ever who received two Nobel Prizes. And she happened to come from a country that was constantly occupied by its oppresors, from Poland. Both the author and the heroin did a fantastic job.

I had mixed emotions on this book and so did many of the numerous reviews I read. While trying to celebrate Marie Curie in light of our feminist times - a motivating factor in the book's writing, I'm sure - the author spends far too little time on the actual physics of Curie's accomplishments and instead dwells on her love affair with a married collegue, on household matters, trivial matters of her everyday life that may make her seem more approachable to the book's readers, but do nothing to clarify her position in historical physics or her winning, jointly, the Nobel Prize, admittedly then in its infancy. I felt Curie to be an extremely passionate woman, both in her work and in her bed. But I wanted much more detail of the physics than was given.

I've admired Marie Curie (born Maria Sklowdowska in Russian-occupied Poland) longer than I can remember, quite literally. I first read her biography in a "written for children" edition while I was in grade school - Grade 5, perhaps? When I sat in my first day of Laboratory Chemistry class, as a high school junior, I bit my tongue half off as the teacher included this gem of wisdom in his opening remarks: "I know you girls are only taking this class because you need it to get into college. I'll go easy on you. After all, there are very few Marie Curies in the world!" I still wish I'd had the guts to be sent to the office for saying the words that rose up without my bidding them: "And just as few Pierre Curies, Mr. ****."

Anyway, perhaps that anecdote offers a clue as to how much Madame Curie's biographies have meant to me as I've read them over the years. This most recently published one draws on materials not available to previous biographers, letters and journals that were sealed until 1990. While it's hard to beat Eve Curie's 1937 biography of her mother (after all, who knew the woman better?), Susan Quinn's scholarly work adds illumination in plenty because of those additional resources.

This biography tries to be all things to all readers, and that may be cited as a flaw although it's also clearly a virtue. Readers who are primarily or entirely interested in Marie Curie, the individual human being, are likely to slog through the lengthy and detailed descriptions of scientific work while yawning. Readers who want to know about Marie Curie, the scientist, are apt to be bored or even annoyed by the passages that concern her relationships with parents, siblings, husband, children, and (once, during her widowhood) lover. For me, though, it all fit together beautifully. Madame Curie was all of those things, after all. Scientist, daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend. I'm interested now, just as I was at age 10, in all those aspects of her life.

Her story seems but simple, yet her life is quite compelling. The story of a human-being living poorly, yet still remembering education, remembering that education would hold her together. Her brilliant mind kept through life and her husband taught her to love science more so. She grew up in Poland and never lost faith in what she believed. In the 430 pgs this book tells about the human spirit and how the mind is what keeps you going. It is detailed, telling about events going on during that time, especially very useful because of its index. Her life was a true science, that you must read to explore!

Marie Curie A Life by Susan Quinn takes you on a journey as you discover the life of Marie Curie. From her difficult days under the Russian repression in Poland, to the sexism she faced in Paris, her two Nobel Peace Prizes, and the scandal that almost lost her everything. I especially liked this biography because it was to the point and it did not over glorify Marie's life. The fact of the matter is that Marie's life was full of hardships and this book depicts all of them. I think the author wanted to write this story because she wanted to depict the life of Marie Curie who was an inspiration to several women, and who contributed a great deal to the scientific community. I believe that the author however, wanted to portray her in a real light, so while other biographies might be a little bit more glamorous this one is more realistic. This is an extremely fascinating biography and you should read it because it shows how Marie's life was filled with obstacles, and how she overcame them all.

Susan Quinn does a wonderful job of describing the hurdles that Curie's family had to overcome during the occupation of Poland by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The interesting fact is that all of her siblings were bright and well educated despite the denial of public education. Reading this book has been a delightful experience.

This biography of Maria Sklodowska Curie and her husband Pierre Curie is one of the most detailed I have ever read. In addition to the fascinating stories about their scientific discoveries, it presents intimate information about their lives taken from letters, diaries, and other historical documents. Author Susan Quinn did a remarkably thorough job of research into the personal lives of these scientists as well as to recount the many scientifc discoveries made around the turn of the 20th century. This book is a "must-read" for anyone interested in the history of some of the most important scientific discoveries that were made more than a century ago.

This book did an very good job in explaining the science of Marie Curie to the average reader, However it's not a book I would read for fun. This book was long and tedious with extensive descriptions of things that often seemed almost completely unrelated to her life and work. If you're looking for a book that will make you like who Marie Curie was this is not it. It depicts her as cold, aloof and almost neglectful of her children. It also seems to end abrubtly. There isn't a conclusion of any sort to a book that goes on for 433 pages.If you need to know about her life and work this book certainly does a more than adequate job in covering it, but it's a long slow read that you have to force yourself through in parts of it.

This book has excellent historical information about Poland and Marie Curie's family before she was born and after. It gives a very good description of her life growing up and her family, as well as personal experiences gleaned from unpublished letters. It brings information hitherto unpublished about her personal life, and it presents her career in a fascinating way. I cannot rate the book highly enough.