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Marie Curie Biography

“Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit.”

– Marie Curie

Short Bio Marie Curie

Marya Sklodowska was born on 7 November 1867, Warsaw Poland. She was the youngest of five children and was brought up in a poor but well-educated family. Marya excelled in her studies and won many prizes. At an early age she became committed to the ideal of Polish independence from Russia – who at the time were ruling Poland with an iron fist, and in particular, making life difficult for intellectuals. She yearned to be able to teach fellow Polish woman who were mostly condemned to zero education.

Unusually for women at that time, Marya took an interest in Chemistry and Biology. Since opportunities in Poland for further study was limited, Marya went to Paris, where after working as a governess she was able to study at the Sorbonne, Paris. Struggling to learn in French, Marya threw herself into her studies, leading an ascetic life dedicated to education and improving her scientific knowledge. She went on to get a degree in Physics and finished top in her school. She later got a degree in Maths, finishing second in her school year. Curie had a remarkable willingness for hard work.

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

Pierre and Marie Currie

It was in Paris that she met Pierre Curie, who was then chief of the laboratory at the School of Physics and Chemistry. He was a renowned Chemist, who had conducted many experiments on crystals and electronics. Pierre was smitten with the young Marya and asked her to marry him. Marya initially refused but, after persistence from Pierre, she relented. Until Pierre’s untimely death in 1906, the two become inseparable. In addition to co-operation on work, they spent much leisure time bicycling and travelling around Europe together.

Marie Curie work on Radioactivity

Marie pursued studies in radioactivity. In 1898, this led to the discovery of two new elements. One of which she named polonium after her home country.

There then followed four years of extensive study into the properties of radium. Using dumped uranium tailings from a nearby mine, very slowly, and with painstaking effort, they were able to extract a decigram of radium.

Radium was discovered to have remarkable impacts. In testing the product, Marie suffered burns from the rays. It was from this discovery of radium and its properties that the science of radiation was able to develop. It was found that radium had the power to burn away diseased cells in the body. Initially, this early form of radiotherapy was called ‘curietherapy.

The Curries agreed to give away their secret freely; they did not wish to patent such a valuable element. The element was soon in high demand, and it began industrial scale production.

For their discovery, they were awarded the Davy Medal (Britain) and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

In 1906, Pierre was killed in a road accident, leaving Marie to look after the laboratory and her two children. Her two children were Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956) and Ève Curie (1904–2007). Irene won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, jointly with her husband.

In 1911, she was awarded a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of actinium and further studies on radium and polonium.

The success of Marie Curie also brought considerable hostility, criticism and suspicion from a male-dominated science world. She suffered from the malicious rumours and accusations that were spread amongst jealous colleagues.

Marie Curie at International Conference. Einstein is second on the right.

At the end of the First World War, she returned to the Institute of Radium in Paris. She also published a book – Radiology in War (1919) which encompassed her great ideas on science. Curie was also proud to participate in the newly formed League of Nations, through joining the  International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation in August 1922.

“I believe international work is a heavy task, but that it is nevertheless indispensable to go through an apprenticeship in it, at the cost of many efforts and also of a real spirit of sacrifice: however imperfect it may be, the work of Geneva has a grandeur that deserves our support.”

Letter to Eve Curie (July 1929)

Marie Curie was known for her modest and frugal lifestyle. She asked any financial prizes to be given to research bodies rather than herself. During the First World War, she offered her Nobel Prizes to the French Treasury.

Marie Curie died in 1934 from Cancer. It was an unfortunate side effect of her own ground-breaking studies into radiation which were to help so many people.

Marie Curie pushed back many frontiers in science, and at the same time set a new bar for female academic and scientific achievement.

Her discovery of radium enabled Ernest Rutherford to investigate the structure of the atom, and it provided the framework for Radiotherapy for cancer.

Curie also played a leading role in redefining women’s role in society and science.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Marie Curie” , Oxford, UK – www.biographyonline.net . Published 15th June 2012. Last updated 13th Feb 2018.

The Inner World of Marie Curie

The Inner World of Marie Curie at Amazon.com

External links

• Marie Curie at Nobel Prize.org
• Marie Curie short biography

Simone Biles

Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, with more than three dozen Olympic and World Championship medals to her name.

1997-present

Latest News: Simone Biles Eyes Third Olympic Appearance

The legendary gymnast could also compete at the 2024 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, beginning May 30, ahead of U.S. Olympic Team Trials for the sport at the end of June. If she makes the squad, Biles would become the first American gymnast since 2000 to have made three Olympic teams. Only Muriel Davis Grossfeld, Linda Metheny, and Dominique Dawes have previously achieved that feat. The Paris Games begin July 26.

Quick Facts

Early life: parents and family, gymnastics career, dancing with the stars, #metoo: larry nassar survivor, husband jonathan owens, who is simone biles.

Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, having won a record 37 Olympic and World Championship medals. The gymnastics prodigy was introduced to the sport at age 6 and began dominating at the junior elite level. Her career has only skyrocketed since 2013 when she won the U.S. and World Championships all-around titles in her first year at the senior elite level. Biles has now won six all-around World titles and eight all-around U.S. Championships titles; both are records in the sport. The two-time Olympian dazzled at the 2016 Rio Games, winning five medals, before medaling twice at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which she largely withdrew from for her mental health. After two years off from the sport, Biles returned to competition in August 2023. She is married to NFL player Jonathan Owens.

FULL NAME: Simone Arianne Biles Owens BORN: March 14, 1997 BIRTHPLACE: Columbus, Ohio SPOUSE: Jonathan Owens (2023-present) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces HEIGHT: 4 ft. 8 in.

Simone Arianne Biles was born on March 14, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio. Due to their mother’s struggle with substance abuse, Biles and her siblings—sisters Adria and Ashley and brother Tevin—entered foster care when Simone was 3 years old. Within a few years, her grandfather Ron and grandmother Nellie stepped in to raise Simone and Adria in Spring, Texas. Ron and Nellie eventually adopted the two girls, and Ashley and Tevin were adopted by their great aunt.

Biles discovered her athletic abilities at an early age. When she was 6 years old, she visited a gymnastics center on a field trip with her day care group. “While there I imitated the other gymnasts, and Coach Ronnie noticed,” Biles said . “The gym sent home a letter requesting that I join tumbling or gymnastics.” Very soon, Biles was on her way to developing those natural gifts.

Nellie has been a constant source of support through Biles’ rise in the world of competitive athletics; as the gymnast told CNN, “She encourages me and never lets me feel down about something for too long.”

In August 2019, Biles was stunned to learn that her brother, Tevin Biles-Thomas, had been arrested on triple homicide charges in connection with fatal shootings at New Year’s Eve party. “My heart aches for everyone involved, especially for the victims and their families,” Biles tweeted . “There is nothing that I can say that will heal anyone’s pain, but I do want to express my sincere condolences to everyone affected by this terrible tragedy.” After an initial mistrial, an Ohio judge acquitted Tevin due to insufficient evidence and dismissed the charges against him in May 2021.

Biles, who stands 4 feet 8 inches tall, began competing as a level 8 gymnast in 2007, and by 2011, she had cemented her standing at the junior elite level. That year, she took the top spot in the vault and balance beam events and finished third in the all-around at the American Classic. She followed with an impressive series of showings in 2012, winning the vault and the all-around events at the American Classic, the Alamo Classic, the Houston National Invitational, and the Secret U.S. Classic. Watching Team USA win gold in the women’s team all-around at the 2012 London Olympics propelled her to think beyond her original goal of collegiate gymnastics.

Biles soon emerged as a force to be reckoned with at the senior elite level, bursting into the spotlight as the all-around winner at the 2013 U.S. P&G Championships. Also that year, she delivered a historic showing at the World Championships by becoming the first Black woman to win gold in the all-around. As she explained to The Hollywood Reporter , the victory likely served as an example to other young gymnasts: “I think it inspires a lot of the little girls out there to go in the gym and train harder,” she said.

Biles continued to build on her successes in 2014, again taking the U.S. and World titles in the all-around competition. She also won gold in vault, floor exercise, balance beam, and all-around at the Secret U.S. Classic that same year. During her floor routines, Biles often executed what has become one of her signature moves: a double layout flip with a half-twist.

In 2015, Biles became the first woman to win her third consecutive World all-around title, giving her a record 10 gold medals at the international competition. Considered one of the country’s top Olympic hopefuls, she then resumed training for Rio 2016 at World Champions Centre, which is owned by her family, in Spring, Texas.

In July 2016, Biles wowed gymnastics fans with an impressive performance at the Olympic trials, winning the all-around title and first in floor exercise and vault. With that, the 19-year-old secured her spot on the 2016 Olympic team.

2016 Olympic Games

On August 9, 2016, Biles led the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win the gold. She earned an impressive 15.933 in the vault, a 15.3 on balance beam, and 15.8 for a crowd-pleasing floor routine in which she performed the Biles, her signature move comprised of a double layout flip with a half twist. The powerhouse gymnast shared the victory with Gabby Douglas , Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Aly Raisman , a team known as “The Final Five.”

Raisman explained the meaning behind the team nickname on the Today Show : “We’re the Final Five because this is [coach] Marta [Karolyi’s] last Olympics, and without her none, of this would have been possible... We wanted to do it for her just because she’s there with us every single day.” She added: “This is the last Olympics where there’s a five-girl team. The next Olympics is only going to be a four-person team.”

The Final Five became the third American women’s gymnastic team to win gold, following team victories in 1996 and 2012. Afterward, Biles tweeted “dreams DO come true” and a photo of the U.S. team on the medal podium.

Biles continued to dominate the Olympic solo competition. She won the women’s individual all-around gold medal with a final score of 62.198, cementing a 2.1 lead over Raisman’s silver medal performance. The historic margin of victory was larger than any gymnast from 1980 to 2012 combined. She also became the first woman in two decades to win back-to-back Olympic all-around and World titles.

Not done yet, Biles won gold again in vault with a score of 15.966 then a bronze medal in the balance beam with 14.733 points. During that event, she fought to maintain her balance in a rare stumble. “The rest of the routine was still pretty good,” the Olympian said, according to USA Today , “so I can’t be too disappointed in myself.” Her victorious run concluded in the floor exercise, where she took the gold in a brilliant 15.966-point performance that incorporated her eponymous signature move.

Earning five medals in all, Biles joined only three other gymnasts who have won four gold medals in a single Olympic Games: Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union in 1956, Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Ecaterina Szabo of Romania in 1984.

Breaking Records at the U.S. Nationals and World Championships

After taking much of 2017 off, Biles returned to intensive training and resumed her place at the top of her sport. In August 2018, she swept all four events at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships to win the competition by a whopping 6.55 points and become the first woman to claim five national all-around titles.

Biles managed to outdo herself the following year by becoming the first gymnast to pull off a double-double dismount from the balance beam and the first woman to nail a triple-double in the floor exercise, making her sixth U.S. nationals win a mere formality.

Biles then claimed her fifth individual all-around gold at the World Championships in October 2019, pushing her total haul to a record-setting 25 World Championship medals.

On May 22, 2021, Biles made history as the first woman to successfully land the Yurchenko double pike move in competition at the GK US Classic in Indianapolis. The move, which is typically performed by male gymnasts, is a roundoff onto the springboard, followed by a back handspring onto the vault and ends with a piked double backflip for the landing. She has since landed the move at the 2023 U.S. Classic, the 2023 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, and the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The latter instance was the first time a female gymnast performed the skill at an international competition, and as a result, the move has been renamed the Biles.

2020 Olympic Games Withdrawal

It was no surprise when Biles earned a spot on her second Olympic squad in June 2021 ahead of the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But competing on the world stage this time around proved different. Unable to shake “the twisties,” when a gymnast dangerously loses awareness of their body midair, Biles shocked fans when she withdrew from the women’s team gymnastics final.

“I say put mental health first,” Biles said at a press conference after the team event. “Because if you don’t, then you’re not going to enjoy your sport, and you’re not going to succeed as much as you want to.”

Team USA ended up earning a silver medal after Biles’ exit. She also sat out the finals on vault, uneven bars, and floor exercise, as well as the individual all-around. The Olympic favorite did compete in the balance beam final, scoring 14.000, and earned a bronze medal.

“I literally felt like I was fighting my body and my body to do these tricks,” Biles said in an April 2024 interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast. “It’s just like your body, your brain opens up, [you] have no idea where you are.”

Her withdrawal from the Summer Games began an extended break from competition, during which she focused on her mental health and entered therapy.

2023 Return to Competition

Biles continued her break from the sport for two years, but in early August 2023, she returned to competition at the Core Hydration Classic, previously known as the U.S. Classic. She won the all-around title by an astonishing 5 points, in addition to the floor and beam titles. “I feel really good about where I am right now, mentally and physically,” Biles said afterward. “I still think there are some things to work on in my routines, but for the first meet back, I would say it went pretty well. I’m very shocked and surprised.”

Her dominant performance at the Classic qualified her for the U.S. Championships later in the month, where she became the first gymnast to win eight national all-around titles and, at 26, the oldest woman to win a championship. Biles broke her tie for most national championships with the late Alfred Jochim, who earned his seventh all-around title in 1933. As with the Classic, Biles also took home titles in beam and floor exercise.

In October, she joined Team USA at the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, her first international competition in two years. The American women notched their seventh consecutive World title, and Biles individually scored additional gold medals in the all-around, balance beam, and floor exercise. She also took silver in vault. With her new hardware, Biles became the most decorated gymnast in history.

Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history and has won 95 medals as of May 7, 2024. This includes:

• Olympic medals: 7 (4 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze)
• World Championships medals: 30 (23 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze)
• U.S. Championships medals: 36 (28 gold, 4 silver, 4 bronze)
• U.S. Classic medals: 22 (20 gold, 2 bronze)

The gymnastic powerhouse has won six all-around World titles, more than any other female gymnast, and a record eight all-around titles at U.S. Championships. Over the years, Biles has also won two World Challenge Cup titles and many medals as a junior elite gymnast. She also has five tricks named after her: two in floor exercise, two in vault, and one in balance beam.

The gym isn’t the only place Biles has earned recognition. In July 2022, Joe Biden presented Biles with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2017, Biles joined the cast of the 24 th season of Dancing with the Stars, on which she was paired with pro Sasha Farber. Despite impressing the judges with her moves, the Olympian was eliminated during the semifinals that May.

In January 2018, Biles revealed on Twitter that she was one of the many young women who had been molested by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar , who had recently been sentenced to 60 years in prison on child pornography charges and 25 to 40 years in prison for criminal sexual conduct.

“Please believe me when I say it was a lot harder to first speak those words out loud than it is now to put them on paper” she wrote. “For too long I’ve asked myself, ‘Was I too naive? Was it my fault?’ I now know the answers to those questions. No. No, it was not my fault. No, I will not and should not carry the guilt that belongs to Larry Nassar, USAG, and others.”

Biles is married NFL football player Jonathan Owens. The couple got engaged in February 2022 after going public as a couple in August 2020. They were married in a civil ceremony on April 21, 2023, before having a destination wedding in Mexico less than a month later on May 6.

The couple has been partially long-distance as Simone lives and trains in the Houston area, and Jonathan pursues his football career. He played for the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin at the start of their marriage before signing a two-year contract with the Chicago Bears in March 2024. They are building a home in Texas.

• If I won gold in 2016, I think it would change my life.
• It’s amazing to be recognized for all of this success, [but] I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles.

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The 7 Best Biography Sites for Famous and Inspirational People

Biographies give us a historical look into the lives and times of notable people. They help to teach, inspire, and improve us as people.

Famous people, both living and dead, can help to inspire us to greater things and teach us about missing gaps in our own knowledge. Indeed, by studying the lives of some of the most famous people throughout history, you can turn yourself into a better person. And who doesn’t want that?

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Biography has been online for many years and has become one of the most well-known sites out there for memoirs, interviews, and life stories.

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If you enjoy the content on the main site, make sure you also check out Biography's YouTube channel. Most of the videos are a couple of minutes long and focus on a single person.

S9 is like a Wikipedia of biographies . The content is editable by the users, and they also can contribute to the existing biographies on the site.

Every day, there is a selection of featured biographies, with many of the selections being for people you might not have heard of but who have achieved wonderful things in their lives. The site also has a birthday section and a latest biographies section, allowing you to delve into the lives of different fascinating people every time you log on.

S9 even has a biographical game in the form of a quiz. The questions are, predictably, based on people's lives. Fair warning—to get a good score, you need to have a serious deep amount of knowledge.

3. Notable Biographies

The simply organized encyclopedia on famous and historical personalities is very readable with an alphabetically arranged Wikipedia-like presentation. You can also add your own information through a form.

It lacks the large number of entries that you will find on some of the other sites on this list, but don't let that put you off. If you're looking for a who's-who of various global luminaries rather than endless lists of people you have never heard of, this is the site for you.

4. Women's History Month

Women's History Month is an official site produced by the US government. Of course, the month of the celebration itself is March, but you can visit and enjoy the site and its massive amount of content throughout the year.

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance, and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.

Overall, the site is an exhaustive resource on women who have impacted history through the ages. It pays tribute to some of the greatest women in history with multimedia content and other exhibits.

5. Wikipedia

If you want information on famous people, you can never go too far wrong with the ubiquitous Wikipedia. If anyone has achieved something globally noteworthy in their lives, you can be almost certain that they will have an entry on the site.

Of course, for the true giants of history, the entries can run to tens of thousands of words. But even for slightly less-famous people, you will still be able to find plenty of information.

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And hey, if no article exists about the person in question, you can always try and make one yourself!

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The Academy of Achievement aims to provide readers with insight into the visionaries and pioneers who have shaped the modern world around us. The academy has existed for more than six decades, thus making inclusion in its hall of fame an honor in its own right.

For all the people who have made it onto the hallowed list over the years, you can access complete biographies, samples of their work, images, interviews, video content, and more.

7. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

If you're a politics fanatic, you will love the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. It features a biography for all 12,877 people who have served in the House of Representatives and Congress since the forming of the United States.

For each person, you will be able to find information about the congresses they served, the years they served, the state/territory they represented, their position, and their party. Of course, there is also a text article dedicated to each person, with information on their personal life, background, and career.

We've also covered some of the best sites for unbiased fact-checking if this isn't enough for your politics fix.

8. Academy of American Poets

If literature is more your thing, head to the Academy of American Poets. It offers more than 3,000 biographies of contemporary and classical poets from the US.

The site also offers non-biographical content. For example, there are thousands of poems for you to read, a poem-a-day feature, a library containing books, texts, and more, and even materials for teachers and links to poetry events near your location.

Learn About People to Become a Better Person

No matter what hobbies and interests you have, there is always something to be learned by studying the lives of other people.

Whether they help you find an answer to a moral question, inspire you to start a new project, or simply helps you pass some time on your commute, these sites will all help to keep you entertained and engaged for hours.

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Elon Musk Hardcover – September 12, 2023

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• Print length 688 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Simon & Schuster
• Publication date September 12, 2023
• Dimensions 6.13 x 1.9 x 9.25 inches
• ISBN-10 1982181281
• ISBN-13 978-1982181284
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster (September 12, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 688 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1982181281
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982181284
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.78 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.9 x 9.25 inches
• #1 in Computer & Technology Biographies
• #5 in Biographies of Business & Industrial Professionals
• #6 in Scientist Biographies

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About the author

Walter isaacson.

Walter Isaacson is writing a biography of Elon Musk. He is the author of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race; Leonardo da Vinci; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution; and Kissinger: A Biography. He is also the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He is a Professor of History at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time magazine.

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Pulitzer Prizes 2024: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists

Jayne Anne Phillips won the fiction award for “Night Watch,” while Jonathan Eig and Ilyon Woo shared the biography prize.

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By Elizabeth A. Harris and Joumana Khatib

Eighteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize on Monday, in the categories of history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction and biography, which had two winners.

Night Watch , by Jayne Anne Phillips

A story about a mother and daughter set in the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, W.Va., after the Civil War. “Night Watch,” which was also longlisted for the National Book Award, is about surviving war and its aftermath. “I consider Phillips to be among the greatest and most intuitive of American writers,” wrote our critic Dwight Garner.

Fiction finalist: Wednesday’s Child: Stories , by Yiyun Li

A short story collection written over the course of a decade that examines aging and loss. The stories touch on a woman who makes a spreadsheet of every person she’s lost, a middle-aged practitioner of Eastern medicine and an 88-year-old biologist.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Fiction finalist: Same Bed Different Dreams , by Ed Park

An imagined alternate history of Korea that includes assassins, slasher films and the dangers of social media. In a review in The Times, the critic Hamilton Cain called the book “wonderfully suspenseful, like watching a circus performer juggle a dozen torches; will one slip his agile hands?”

Random House

No Right to an Honest Living , by Jacqueline Jones

Jones, a historian and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, examines the hypocrisy of Boston before the Civil War. The city was known for its antislavery rhetoric and as the center of abolitionism, but Black residents endured “casual cruelty” in the work force and were condemned to lives of poverty without the chance for equal employment.

Basic Books

History finalist: Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion , by Elliott West

This is an examination of the American West and its physical and cultural transformation in the 19th century. The book covers the 1840s, when the West was home to various Native cultures, and moves through the next three decades, when the area was organized into states and territories and connected by railroads and telegraph wires.

University of Nebraska Press

History finalist: American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the U.S. Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, by Michael Willrich

This book is a history of the American anarchist movement in the early 20th century. While many working class immigrants saw it as heroic, others considered it a frightening foreign ideology.

King: A Life , by Jonathan Eig

This major study of the civil rights icon draws on a landslide of recently released White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, oral histories and other material. Eig shows a masterly command of his research, showing King in intimate moments, and arguing that his nonviolence has been mistaken for passivity. Put simply, our critic Dwight Garner wrote, “Eig’s book is worthy of its subject.”

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom , by Ilyon Woo

In 1848, William and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple, disguised themselves as a sick, wealthy white man traveling with his male slave and headed north. Woo tells the story of their stunning, perilous journey in novelistic detail, tracing their path through the United States and eventual passage to England, where they wrote a popular book about their escape.

Simon & Schuster

Biography finalist: “ Larry McMurtry: A Life ,” by Tracy Daugherty

This is the first comprehensive biography of McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Lonesome Dove” and “The Last Picture Show,” among other novels. Daugherty has also written biographies of Joseph Heller and Joan Didion, and his latest “reads a bit like one of McMurtry’s novels,” our critic Dwight Garner wrote in his review. “Elegy and humor bleed into each other.”

St. Martin’s Press

MEMOIR OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice , by Cristina Rivera Garza

In 1990, Rivera Garza’s 20-year-old sister was killed, and the case is a jumping-off point for this searching, personal examination of femicide in Mexico. The book is “one of the most effective resurrections of a murder victim I have ever read,” our reviewer, Katherine Dykstra, wrote. “Rivera Garza draws her sister, then complicates that drawing and then complicates the complication, creating layer upon layer of nuance.”

Memoir finalist: The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight , by Andrew Leland

The author, a longtime editor and podcaster, details his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that is gradually causing him to lose his vision. His writing is “jazzy and intelligent,” our critic Alexandra Jacobs said, “with licks of understated humor.” Yet Leland also “rigorously explores the disability’s most troubling corners,” resulting in an affecting study of vision and its limits.

Penguin Press

Memoir finalist: The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions , by Jonathan Rosen

In this account of his friendship with Michael Laudor, who came to prominence as a Yale student trying to publicly destigmatize mental illness and later was convicted of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death, Rosen offers a look at the boundaries between brilliance and insanity. Our critic Alexandra Jacobs called it “an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.”

GENERAL NONFICTION

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy , by Nathan Thrall

This book tells the story of a deadly bus crash outside Jerusalem through the eyes of a Palestinian father whose 5-year-old died in the accident. The father’s agony is compounded by the physical and legal restrictions that shape the lives of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Thrall also examines the political, bureaucratic and personal decisions that contributed to the crash, and “vignettes of individual guilt come up against stark political realities,” our reviewer Rozina Ali wrote.

Metropolitan Books

General nonfiction finalist: Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World , by John Vaillant

In 2016, wildfires tore through Fort McMurray, in the Canadian province of Alberta. Vaillant details how the fire began, how it traveled and the wreckage it left behind, weaving a story of a warming climate, a massive oil reserve and the apocalyptic fallout. The heart of the story, of course, is the fire itself: “Vaillant anthropomorphizes fire,” our reviewer David Enrich wrote. “Not only does it grow and breathe and search for food; it strategizes. It hunts. It lays in wait for months, even years.”

General nonfiction finalist: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives , by Siddharth Kara

Cobalt is an essential mineral used in the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that power devices from smartphones to electric vehicle. This book, from an academic who has studied modern slavery, examines the horrors of cobalt mining, particularly the hazardous conditions and subsistence pay that workers face.

Tripas: Poems, by Brandon Som

In this collection, Som celebrates his multicultural heritage and family memories, writing about his grandmother, who was Chicana and worked nights on an assembly line at a Motorola factory, and his Chinese American father and grandparents, who ran a corner store.

Georgia Review Books

Poetry finalist: Information Desk: An Epic , by Robyn Schiff

Schiff chronicles her five years working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s information desk, where she answered mostly one question. As she writes in “Information Desk,” the “catechism/commences: Where’s the bathroom? / Where’s / the bathroom? Can you direct me to a / men’s room? ” Writing about the book for The Times, Maggie Lange called it “a searing yet reverent book-length poem, containing as many jokes as it does social critiques.”

Penguin Poets

Poetry finalist: To 2040, by Jorie Graham

Graham’s 15th poetry collection is narrated by a speaker looking toward the future while reflecting on her own mortality. The collection begins with questions stated as fact: “Are we / extinct yet. Who owns / the map.”

Copper Canyon Press

  More about Elizabeth A. Harris

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“The Chocolate War,” published 50 years ago, became one of the most challenged books in the United States. Its author, Robert Cormier, spent years fighting attempts to ban it .

Joan Didion’s distinctive prose and sharp eye were tuned to an outsider’s frequency, telling us about ourselves in essays that are almost reflexively skeptical. Here are her essential works .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

Brittney Griner reveals harsh Russian prison conditions, suicidal thoughts in Robin Roberts interview

Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who spent nearly 10 months in a Russian prison two years ago, said she contemplated suicide in the early days of her detainment. 

“I did. I didn’t think I could get through what I needed to get through,” Griner said during a special ABC News report on 20/20 that aired Wednesday. She said considering how her loved ones would react to her death made her dismiss those thoughts and instead think, “I have to endure this.”

Griner, 33, a nine-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medalist, was stopped at a security checkpoint in February 2022. Two cartridges of cannabis oil, a legal substance in Arizona, where she lives and plays for the Phoenix Mercury, were found in her backpack when she landed in Russia, where possession of cannabis is a serious offense. She was issued drug-related charges and faced up to 10 years in a notorious penal colony.

During the hourlong interview with Robin Roberts, Griner occasionally became emotional as she described the fear that gripped her, details of the abhorrent conditions she faced and the frightening prospect of never returning to the United States, among other elements of her experience.

During the interview, Griner also read excerpts of her memoir, “Coming Home,” which recounts her detention in Russia and will be released Tuesday.

Griner, like many WNBA athletes, plays overseas in the off-season. She was on a Russian team for the previous seven years because of the $1 million salary she earned — about five times more than she garnered in the WNBA.

She said she did not realize the cannabis, which she uses to manage pain, was in her luggage as she hastily packed her bag after waking up late. As she was headed to a connecting flight at the Moscow airport, she was stopped at a security checkpoint, where the cannabis oil was found. Griner equated the mistake to a person losing his car keys or misplacing his eyeglasses. But she offered no excuses.

Sitting across from Roberts with curly hair instead of the trademark locs she sported that extended to the small of her back, Griner said “I knew that” cannabis was illegal in Russia. “Honest to God,” she read from her book, “I just totally forgot the pen was in my bag.”

Realizing she had the cannabis was “like an elevator just dropped from under my feet,” she told Roberts. “My life is over right here. … How was I this absent-minded to make this huge mistake? I could visualize everything I worked for just crumbling.”

After the detainment, she described frantically texting her wife, Cherelle Griner, and her agent, seeking help. Eventually, she said she was detained at a notoriously harsh jail in a 7-foot-by-7-foot cell with a bed too small for her 6-foot-9-inch frame, a sink and a hole in the floor to be used as a toilet.

Griner said she ripped apart one of the few T-shirts she was allowed in her cell to use as a washcloth to instead use as “toilet paper.”

“I felt less than human,” she said.

A week later, Russia invaded Ukraine, and “I felt like I was never coming home.” 

It got worse, she said, when she was transferred to another harsh prison, Correctional Colony No. 1. She said her cell was “filth,” with “dirt and grime and a leaky sink. Blood stains.”

Breakfast there was porridge “that was more like cement” and dinner was “a little piece of fish full of bones,” she said. The mattress had a huge blood stain, Griner added. She was allowed one roll of toilet paper a month and for a few months, she said, “we didn’t get anything.” The toothpaste had expired 15 years earlier.

The toughest days, she added, came when she was left outside during the frigid Russian winter for up to two hours.

“I wanted to take my life more than once,” she said, reading from her book. “I felt like leaving here so badly.”

After 134 days, Griner went to trial. She pleaded guilty . “The guilty plea was to take ownership of what happened,” Griner said.

She was sentenced to nine years and sent to an even harsher penal colony . 

“I was just so scared because of so much unknown,” Griner said. She said the new place was frigid. She shared an open space with up to 60 women. There was one bathroom with three toilets, no hot water — and a long sink that everyone shared at the same time.

Her locs froze. Spiders were so rampant that they built a nest in her hair. So she cut it.

“I had to do what I had to do to survive,” she said.

All the while, her wife, WNBA family and fans kept her name and case on the front burner through various acts, including a social media campaign, moments of silence at games and calls to President Joe Biden. Griner was aware of the push and it was encouraging, but she said hearing so many complimentary things about herself made her feel like she “was watching my funeral.”

Finally, hope emerged that she could be released. The Biden administration wanted to have her and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who had been detained in Russia since 2018, released in a trade for Russians imprisoned in the U.S. 

But Russia would not include Whelan, who it claims is a spy, in any deal. The U.S. has said Whelan has been wrongfully detained in Russia. On Dec. 8, 2022, after begrudgingly writing a letter of contrition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Griner was released in a rare prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death,” ending her traumatic ordeal. 

She said that if she had the power to make the exchange, she would have included “Paul and brought him home. … No one should be left behind.” 

While the harrowing experience is behind her, she said she still deals with racist and homophobic jeers, either in person or via social media. 

“It’s been going on for a while,” Griner said. “I try to forget. That used to work until I realized suppressing things is not the way to go. But I know who I am, and the village I have, the people around me, know who I am. And that’s enough for me.” 

She teared up when talking about the lingering impact of the arrest and prison stint. “I don’t think I’ve really gotten through it all the way,” Griner said. “I let everybody down. I try to give myself grace. People say I should give myself some grace. It’s just so hard for me to do that.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org . You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.

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Curtis Bunn is an Atlanta-based journalist for NBC BLK who writes about race.