Radioactive, by Lauren Redniss

Currently The Big Read at the UW-Madison this semester, this book is just phenomenal. The author/artist is a genius–writing, illustrating, and creating her own font for this book–Lauren Redniss is a god! I’m so inspired by her work.

Radioactive is about the life of Marie Curry, and along with being a gorgeously illustrated graphic novel, it’s incredibly-researched, historically accurate, full of drama, intrigue, love and death, it reads like a novel! Very hard to put down.

Oh! And the cover (hard-cover version at least) glows in the dark–how cool is that??!!

I can’t say enough about this book, nor can I say it well, so here’s a link to a terrific review of the book by journalist, writer, and current UW-Madison grad student, Emily Eggleston:
A Radioactive Treat.

Check out Lauren Redniss online and Radioactive itself. At her site you can also check out her wonderful “Op-art” pieces for the NYT. Oh, and this book (that I have to have) Century Girl is also there. Check it out! Genius. Seriously.

And here’s a video of Lauren talking about the making of Radioactive at a TED Talk (yep, she’s also young and beautiful–she’s got it all):