TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of February 7, 1938

FictionNonfiction
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MADAME CURIE
Eve Curie
Cover of MADAME CURIE

MADAME CURIE

by Eve Curie · Doubleday, Doran

14 wks at #1 · 10 on list

"A biography [of Nobel Prize winner Madame Curie] that stirs the heart and the mind by a fine counterpoint of sense and sensibility, a great story superbly told."--New York Times Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) was the first woman scientist to win worldwide acclaim and was, indeed, one of the great scientists of the twentieth century. Written by Curie's daughter, the renowned international activist Eve Curie, this biography chronicles Curie's legendary achievements in science, including her pioneering efforts in the study of radioactivity and her two Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. It also spotlights her remarkable life, from her childhood in Poland, to her storybook Parisian marriage to fellow scientist Pierre Curie, to her tragic death from the very radium that brought her fame. Now updated with an eloquent, rousing introduction by best-selling author Natalie Angier, this timeless biography celebrates an astonishing mind and a extraordinary woman's life.

5
1
RED STAR OVER CHINA
Edgar Snow
Cover of RED STAR OVER CHINA

RED STAR OVER CHINA

by Edgar Snow · Random House

3 wks on list

The first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorised account of Mao's life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution. Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China. This edition includes extensive notes on the military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today.

7
NEW
GREAT CONTEMPORARIES
Winston S. Churchill
Cover of GREAT CONTEMPORARIES

GREAT CONTEMPORARIES

by Winston S. Churchill · Putnam

5 wks on list

Insightful biographical sketches of major historical figures of the twentieth century, from the incomparable British statesman. Winston S. Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of "his mastery of historical and biographical description." Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries—which features Churchill's profiles of many of the major figures of his time. These short biographies cover political and cultural personalities ranging from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. This edition includes five previously uncollected essays and a number of photographs, plus an enlightening introduction and annotations by noted Churchill scholar James W. Muller. Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, these essays focus on the challenges of statecraft at a time when the democratic revolution was toppling older regimes based on tradition and aristocratic privilege. Churchill's keen observations take on new importance in our own age of roiling political change. Ultimately, Great Contemporaries provides fascinating insight into these subjects as Churchill approaches them with a measuring eye, finding their limitations at least as revealing as their merits.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.