A chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own.
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 ... 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.
With rare exceptions, the 45 other women subjects appear in Sobel’s book only as emanations. Sobel names her chapters for them, but tells little of their stories beyond that ... Sobel writes elegantly about science, unspooling Curie’s pursuits in the lab like a mystery. She leaves us less clear how Curie herself viewed the position of women in science.
A monumental task ... Sobel is unable to tell us much about Curie’s relationships with others in her lab ... I suspect this partly reflects the difficulty of writing about someone so emotionally reserved ... Hasty, breathless treatment.
