I’ve always adored science, and spent my teenage years searching for female role models in the sci-fi and popular science books I loved. I started out at university studying Aerospace Engineering, but upon discovering a severe allergy to lab reports, transferred to a Frankensteinian degree of my own making entitled, “Narratives of Science in Fiction and History,” which examined the interactions of science fiction and scientific history. Fascinated by nineteenth-century paleontology in particular, and wanting to learn more about women’s involvement in science during this period, I proposed as my final year project a joint creative writing/research project which would eventually become my first novel, Our Hideous Progeny.
Do you ever read a book that seems so perfect you wonder if someone concocted it in a lab just for you?
Remarkable Creaturesis about two real nineteenth-century paleontologists, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, the same duo that inspired the movie Ammonite (although the romantic relationship portrayed in the movie is, alas, fiction!). Mary Anning has enjoyed something of a renaissance in popular history lately, but Elizabeth, her lifelong best friend and scientific confidant, is less well-known.
I loved the way Chevalier portrayed Mary and Elizabeth’s passion and determination to pursue science in a time when female scientists were viewed merely as dilettantes, as well as the different ways in which religion and class affected the two women’s lives.
From the New York Times bestselling novelist, a stunning historical novel that follows the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.
On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot ammonites and other fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms,…
For anyone who loved the movie adaptation of the same name, this book is a must-read!
I saw the movie first, and loved the way it brought to life the stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three real-life Black female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the 1960s.
The book, however, includes even more fascinating details about the history of Black computers at NASA, and the many ways in which these women’s work was crucial to the space race.
It also features a far wider cast than the movie; as author Shetterly said in a 2016 interview for Space.com, "It would be great for people to understand that there were so many more [Black computers at NASA]. … But I understand you can't make a movie with 300 characters. It is simply not possible."
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Golden Globe-winner Taraji P. Henson and Academy Award-winners Octavia Spencer and Kevin Costner Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South and the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA's African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America's space program-and whose contributions have been unheralded, until now. Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as "Human Computers," calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American…
Although this book centers a fictional scientist rather than a real one, the emotions and passion that the protagonist, Katherine, experiences feel all too real.
As a lifelong fan of mathematics, I’ve often felt that math is one of the most maligned branches of science, so I adored the way that Chung portrays Katherine’s love for the subject and the beauty of a good equation. (You can really tell that she herself has experience in the field!)
I also loved the way that Chung delved into the difficulties Katherine experiences as a woman of color in science in the decades after WWII, from outright racism and misogyny to the kind of constant, low-grade doubt and lack of support that can make being a minority in STEM so difficult.
'A young woman's battle for acceptance in a male-dominated world; her misadventures in love; and her torturous journey to track down her real parents in Germany' Mail on Sunday Best New Fiction
'What had seemed to be a Hidden Figures-style female-genius-in-a-male-world narrative turns into a thrilling back-to-my-roots mystery' Daily Telegraph
From childhood, Katherine knows she is different, and that her parents are not who they seem to be. But as she grows up and becomes a mathematician, she faces the most human of problems - who is she? What is the cost of love, and what is the cost of…
Marie Benedict has written several novels now about overshadowed women in history, and this one might be my favorite.
Rosalind Franklin was the talented chemist whose experiments in X-ray crystallographic imaging were crucial to uncovering the double helix structure of DNA – a discovery, of course, long attributed exclusively to her former colleagues Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins.
Benedict does a fabulous job of portraying the difficulties Rosalind faces as a female scientist in this era, constantly disrespected by many of her male colleagues and denied formal recognition by the scientific establishment.
I was fascinated (if at times infuriated on Rosalind’s behalf!) by this book, and also enjoyed the insight into Rosalind’s life as a Jewish woman in Europe in the shadow of WWII.
"Brings to life Franklin's grit and spirit...an important contribution to the historical record." ―The Washington Post
The new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie!
She changed the world with her discovery. Three men took the credit.
Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider―brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its…
Thinking about this book, I’m reminded of the quote “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” a phrase originally coined by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and which is often interpreted to mean that women ought to rebel in order to be remembered – although Ulrich’s original intent was actually to encourage us to appreciate the quiet impact that billions of ordinary women have made upon history.
In The Stargazer’s Sister, Caroline Herschel, the often-ignored sister of famous astronomer William Herschel, is a shy and soft-spoken soul, who starts out assisting with her brother’s work and ends up becoming an accomplished astronomer in her own right.
A beautiful and atmospheric read, this book is a great reminder that women’s contributions to science throughout history often consisted of unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work – but that doesn’t mean that they should be credited any less for their skill and ingenuity!
From the acclaimed author of The Last First Day, here is a beautiful new period novel: a nineteenth-century story of female empowerment before its time, based on the life of Caroline Herschel, sister of the great composer and astronomer William Herschel and an astronomer in her own right.
This exquisitely imagined novel opens as William rescues Caroline from a life of drudgery in Germany and brings her to England and a world of music making and stargazing. Lina, as Caroline is known, serves as William’s assistant and the captain of his exhilaratingly busy household. William is generous, wise, and charismatic,…
Years ago, Mary’s great uncle—Victor Frankenstein—disappeared in the Arctic. Now, in 1853, she and her husband Henry live in London, struggling to make a name for themselves as paleontologists.
Unfortunately, in a world where scientific success requires wealth and connections, they don’t stand a chance: Mary, the illegitimate daughter of a housemaid, with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue; and Henry, a recently-fired geologist better known for his gambling problems than his radical theories. But when Mary discovers some old family papers that reveal the truth about her great-uncle’s disappearance, she comes up with a plan—one that will pay their debts, prove Henry’s theories right, and finally get her some of the respect she deserves….
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.
Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey…
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.
Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey…
