Atomic Age Stars Fiction and Nonfiction related to the Atomic Age.

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

    Fiction

  • The Ash Garden
    Author: Bock, Dennis
    Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375413022 Date: 2001
    starKirkus
    Triangulating the fates of three separate people, this debut novel reveals the true costs of the August 1945 nightmare unleashed in a blinding flash by the Enola Gay.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | World Wars Stars | Debuts
    Updated 8/14/01
  • Los Alamos
     Author: Kanon, Joseph
    Publisher: Broadway List Price: $25 ISBN: 0553062247 Date: 1997
    starPW starBooklist starKirkus
    PW Best Book of '97
    Kanon recreates the most compelling real-life drama of this century - an audacious flight of the imagination which interweaves real and fictional figures to create a "what- if" novel of historical intrigue. Spring 1945: As work on the first atom bomb nears completion in New Mexico, Manhattan Project security officer Karl Bruner is found murdered. Is Bruner's killing a result of a violent sexual encounter, or part of a plot that threatens to jeopardize the project itself?
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | World War Stars
  • Man Walks Into a Room
    Author: Krauss, Nicole
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385503997 Date: 2002
    starLJ
    In this shimmering debut novel of memory, identity, and love, an English professor's brain tumor eradicates his memories past the age of 12 as he mourns a life well-lived and profoundly forgotten.
    Suggested Reading: First Fiction
    Updated 5/3/02
  • Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
    Author: Millet, Lydia
    Publisher: Soft Skull $ 25 ISBN: 1932360859 Date: 2005
    starBooklist starPW
    Millet's latest novel is a black-comic tour de force depicting the "second coming" of atomic bomb creators Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard. Despite being dead, these scientists are spotted in Santa Fe by a shy librarian, who joins them on a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C.
    Suggested Reading: Black Humor
    Updated 5.19.05
  • What Happened to Henry
    Author: Pywell, Sharon L.
    Publisher: Putnam $ 19.95 ISBN: 0399151680 Date: 2004
    starKirkus
    In this funny, moving, wise, and powerful tale, a family struggles to understand their own son--who is either crazy or blessed--not unlike the Cold War America in which they live.
    Updated 4.8.04
  • The Devil's Wind
    Author: Rayner, Richard
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0066212928 Date: 2005
    starKirkus
    A story of mobsters, murder, and the birth of Las Vegas is set against the backdrop of the McCarthy hearings and the testing of the A-Bomb in the Nevada desert.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
    Updated 10.25.04
  • America's Children
    Author: Thackara, James
    Publisher: Overlook $ 26.95 ISBN: 1585671118 Date: 2001
    star
    Booklist
    Thackara's debut novel, published in the U.S. for the first time, explores the enigmatic J. Robert Oppenheimer and chronicles the birth of the nuclear age in America.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
    Updated 3/13/01
  • Dancing With Einstein
    Author: Wenner, Kate
    Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743251644 Date: 2004
    starBooklist
    From acclaimed author Kate Wenner comes a highly original new novel that explores the lasting effects of the fear of nuclear war on a woman whose father helped develop the atomic bomb.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 3.11.04

    • Nonfiction

  • American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
    Author: Bird, Kai
    Publisher: Knopf $ 35 ISBN: 0375412026 Date: 2005
    starPW starKirkus starBooklist
    American Prometheus is a rich evocation of America in mid-century and a compelling portrait of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, a man shaped by, or helped to shape, its major events--the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 3.10.05
  • A Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom
    Author: Cathcart, Brian
    Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374157162 Date: 2005
    starKirkus starPW starBooklist
    Re-creating the frustrations, excitements, and obsessions of 1932, the "miracle year" of British physics, Cathcart reveals in rich detail the astonishing story behind the splitting of the atom in a riveting and erudite narrative.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 11.4.04
  • Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima
    Author: Preston, Diana
    Publisher: Walker $ 27 ISBN: 0802714455 Date: 2005
    starBooklist
    Before the Fallout is the epic, riveting story of the half century between the discovery of radium and the detonation of "Little Boy" over Hiroshima, during which an exhilarating quest to unravel the secrets of the material world led to the knowledge of how to destroy it.
    Updated 3.16.05
  • Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima
    Author: Walker, Stephen
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0060742844 Date: 2005
    starKirkus starPW starBooklist
    British filmmaker and documentary director Stephen Walker tells the story of the bombing of Hiroshima in a new and dramatic way: a minute-by-minute account told from multiple perspectives, including American soldiers, Los Alamos scientists, and Japanese survivors.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 5.25.05