Yes, I Glow in the Dark!

Author: Libbe HaLevy, 2018

HaLevy's YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK! tells how one nuclear victim learned to fight back with the facts, sarcasm, and a podcast. She also nails the nuclear industry on how they have continued to get away with slow motion murder, from manipulating language to their ongoing, well-funded media propaganda campaigns, to flat-out lying. Fierce, uncompromising, yet surprisingly funny, HaLevy has written a book that Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate Dr. Helen Caldicott calls, “Absolutely fascinating. This book must be read by all people who care about the future of the planet and their children.”

Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats

Author(s): Kristen Iversen (2013)

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A shocking account of the government’s attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic waste released by a secret nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and a community’s vain search for justice—soon to be a feature documentary

Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in America." Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium. It's also a book about the destructive power of secrets--both family and government. Her father's hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats--best not to inquire too deeply into any of it. But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions and discovered some disturbing realities.

Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book is both captivating and unnerving.

Silent Witnesses: Three Decades After Chernobyl's Nuclear Disaster

Author(s): Daan Kloeg and Hans Wolkers, 2014

About three decades ago, the world was faced with the greatest nuclear disaster in history when a nuclear reactor exploded in Chernobyl. The enormous consequences for people and the environment still persist. But almost everyone has now forgotten the disaster. This unique book gives the reader a picture of the consequences of this enormous disaster. The English book consists of two parts. Part I deals with the background of the disaster and its long-term effects. Part II contains an exceptional collection of dramatic photographs taken in the so-called "dead zone". An almost depopulated area where only a handful of people still live. The silent witnesses ("Silent-Witnesses") of the disaster play a prominent role in the book. The authors Hans Wolkers and Daan Kloeg, both scientists, authors and photographers have a solid scientific background and have published numerous scientific and popular scientific articles. Part of the proceeds will go to the victims of the disaster.

A unique book with 250 poignant photos of a devastated area in Ukraine. With dramatic photos of the last inhabitants of the 'death zone' around Chernobyl. The book is scientifically based, but also artistic and artistic.

About a Mountain

Author: John D’Agata (2010)

“When John D’Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the federal government’s plan to store nuclear waste in a place called Yucca Mountain... Here is the work of a penetrating thinker whose startling portrait of a mountain in the desert compels a reexamination of the future of human life.”

The Whistleblowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry

Author(s): Myron Peretz Glazer & Penina Migdal Glazer (1989)

“What kind of person puts a successful career at risk in order to warn the public of a dangerous or illegal situation? What are the consequences of such an action, and how do these people and their families deal with the pressure? What laws protect them, and where can they turn for support? The often surprising answers are in this book, the first large-scale, long-term study of sixty-four courageous ethical resisters and their spouses.”

Pluto’s Realm

Author: Elena Filatova (2008)

Haunting and fascinating photos of Chernobyl today, with text by the photographer. “In the first years after the accident our motto was- ‘Lets Save Chernobyl!’ Now, everyone just says ‘Let the grass grow through it...’ ”  

We linked to the free online edition of this book, but it is also available on Amazon, too.

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Author: Svetlana Alexievich (1997); Translation by Keith Gessen (2005)

Personal accounts of the Chernobyl tragedy by those who experienced it, from everyday citizens to firefighters to the clean up crew. Comprised of interviews in monologue form.

Real Lives, Half Lives: Tales from the Atomic Wasteland

Author: Jeremy Hall (1996)

“The idea for a book about the secret lives of people exposed in one way or another to radioactivity-- the victims, the whistleblowers, the protesters, the speculators, the gangsters and terrorists-- came to me on a visit to Frenchman Flats in the summer of 1994 as I was standing at the edge of the Sedan crater and gazing into the void...”

This is My Homeland: Stories of the effects of nuclear industries by the people of Serpent River First Nation and the north shore of Lake Huron

Author(s): Lorraine Rekmans, Keith Lewis and Anabel Dwyer (2003)

Present day testimonies and history about the effects of the nuclear industry on an indigenous group in North America.

A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography

Author: Helen Caldicott (1997)

A memoir by Australian physician Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, “which did perhaps more than any other group to thrust the nuclear issue under the public eye.”

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Author: Terry Tempest Williams (1992)

Recommended by Fairewinds board member Chiho Kaneko, “Refuge” is the powerful true story of a family in Utah who are experiencing the health effects of atomic bomb testing.  Williams, a naturalist and writer, parallels the story of her mother dying of radiation-induced cancer with the environmental changes occurring simultaneously, as the Great Salt Lake rises to record heights and threatens local wildlife.

Plume: Poems

Author: Kathleen Flenniken (2012)

Flenniken grew up in a community of Hanford workers in Washington state at the height of the Cold War, where "every father I knew disappeared to fuel the bomb." The author herself worked as an engineer at Hanford for three years. After the release of declassified documents contradicting the safe world she knew as a child, and the radiation-induced illnesses of family friends, Flenniken makes sense of life at Hanford in this much lauded collection of poems.

Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town

Author: Kelly McMasters (2008)

Kelly McMasters grew up loving her blue-collar hometown of Shirley. A service-town to the glittering Hamptons on the east end of Long Island, the place, though hardscrabble, was full of strong, hard-working families and an abundance of natural beauty. Comforted by the rhythms of small-town life, Kelly and her neighbors were lulled into a sense of safety. But while they were going to work and school, setting off fireworks at Fourth of July barbecues, or jumping through sprinklers in summertime, a deadly combination of working class shame and the environmental catastrophe of a nearby leaking nuclear laboratory began to boil over...

The People of Three Mile Island

Author: Robert Del Tredici (1980)

A collection of photos and interviews from residents who experienced the Three Mile Island nuclear accident first-hand. Mr. Del Tredici and his photographs appear in epidemiologist Dr. Steve Wing's presentation about cancer rates increasing after the TMI accident (Part 1) and Part 2 here.