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Atomic Age Stars
Page Modified: April 2, 2008
Fiction and Nonfiction related to the Atomic Age.
Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.
- The Ash Garden
Author: Bock, Dennis
Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0375413022 Date: 2001
Kirkus
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
PW
Booklist
Kirkus
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
LJ
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
Booklist PW
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
Kirkus
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
Kirkus
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
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
Booklist
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 - American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Author: Bird, Kai
Publisher: Knopf $ 35 ISBN: 0375412026 Date: 2005
PW Kirkus Booklist
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
Kirkus PW Booklist
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
Booklist
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
Kirkus PW Booklist
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
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