The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestseller, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore will be the 17th Livermore Reads Together (LRT) featured book. LRT is the Library’s annual community reading program sponsored by the Friends of the Livermore Public Library.
Last summer, the community voted online and in-person, selecting the next LRT book from four titles selected by Livermore Public Library staff. Radium Girls received the most votes, becoming the featured LRT 2023 title. The library will host a series of events honoring Women’s History Month and themes from Radium Girls throughout the month of March 2023.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.
Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these shining girls are the luckiest alive – until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.
But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women’s cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
ABOUT AUTHOR KATE MOORE
Kate Moore is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls, winner of the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History & Biography. Radium Girls was voted U.S. librarians’ favorite nonfiction book of 2017 and named a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association. A British writer based near Cambridge, England, Moore writes across a variety of genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her latest book is the critically acclaimed The Woman They Could Not Silence, which, among other accolades, was a 2021 Booklist Editors’ Choice and was named runner-up for Best History & Biography in the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards. For more information about Kate Moore, please visit her website at https://www.kate-moore.com/.
