Radioactive (2010)

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout (2010) Not panels and balloons but something stranger: Lauren Redniss builds each page from her own luminous artwork and text, so the Curies' marriage, their discovery and what radioactivity went on to mean all unfold together. It was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award, the first work of visual nonfiction to be named one. Choose it for the atmosphere and the human cost of discovery rather than a step-by-step account of the chemistry; it is a book to linger over, and it reads best for adults who already know roughly what an atom is.