The complete acceptance speech of Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize committee selected poet and author Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Here is the full text of her Nobel Lecture given on December 7, 2020.
Mary has always wanted to win a Nobel Prize. She loves running her own science experiments at home. But how can she become a real scientist and win the greatest prize of all? One day Mary stumbles on a secret meeting of Nobel Prize winners. Swearing her to secrecy, Professor Barry Marshall agrees to be her guide as she travels around the world and through time to learn the secrets behind some of the most fascinating and important scientific discoveries. They talk space and time with Albert Einstein, radiation with Marie Curie, DNA with Crick, Watson and Wilkins – and much more. Join Mary on her time-travel adventure – and do your own experiments along the way!
Since its publication in 1968, The Double Helix has given countless readers a rare and exciting look at one highly significant piece of scientific research-Watson and Crick's race to discover the molecular structure of DNA.
Only fifteen women have won the Nobel Prize for Peace since it was first awarded in 1901. In this compelling book, Judith Stiehm narrates these women’s varied lives in fascinating detail. The second edition includes the stories of three additional outstanding women—Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman—who were honored in 2011. Engaged and inspiring, all these women clearly demonstrate that there is something each of us can do to advance a just, positive peace. Whether they began by insisting on garbage collection or simply by planting a tree, each shared a common vision and commitment undiminished by obstacles and opposition. As Judith Stiehm convincingly shows, all are truly "champions for peace."
The World's Most Prestigious Prize: The Inside Story of the Nobel Peace Prize is a fascinating, insider account of the Nobel peace prize. Drawing on unprecedented access to the Norwegian Nobel Institute's vast archive, it offers a gripping account of the founding of the prize, as well as its highs and lows, triumphs and disasters, over the last one-hundred-and-twenty years. But more than that, the book also draws on the author's unique insight during his twenty-five years as Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. It reveals the real story of all the laureates of that period - some of them among the most controversial in the history of the prize (Gorbachev, Arafat, Peres and Rabin, Mandela and De Klerk, Obama, and Liu Xiaobo) - and exactly why they came to receive the prize. Despite all that has been written about the Nobel Peace Prize, this is the first-ever account written by a prominent insider in the Nobel system.
The Nobel Prize, as founded in Alfred Nobel's will, was the first truly international prize. There is no other award with the same global scope and mission. The Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (from 1969) have not only captured the most significant contributions to the progress of mankind, they also constitute distinct markers of the major trends in their respective areas. The main reason for the prestige of the Prize today is, however, the lasting importance of the names on the list of Laureates and their contributions to human development. In celebration of the centennial of the Nobel Prize in 2001, this book offers a clear perspective on the development of human civilization over the past hundred years. The book serves to present the major trends and developments and also provide information about the life and philosophy of Alfred Nobel, the history of the Nobel Foundation, and the procedure for nominating and selecting Nobel Laureates. Contents:Introduction (M Sohlman)Life and Philosophy of Alfred Nobel (T Frängsmyr)The Nobel Foundation: A Century of Growth and Change (B Lemmel)Nomination and Selection of the Nobel Laureates (B Lemmel)The Nobel Prize in Physics (E B Karlsson)The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Development of Modern Chemistry (B G Malmström & B Andersson)The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (J Lindsten & N Ringertz)The Nobel Prize in Literature (K Espmark)The Nobel Peace Prize (G Lundestad)The Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1969–2000 (A Lindbeck) Readership: General. Keywords:Reviews:“This wonderful book gives a comprehensive review of the Nobel prizes awarded since 1901 … Reading the book is like reading a compressed history of humankind in the twentieth century. It shows how by and large the Nobel prizes have indeed tracked the epoch-making events in this turbulent century.”M Veltman Nobel Laureate in Physics (1999), Emeritus Professor of Physics University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
With humor, wit, and insight, David Carter sets out a number of fail-safe rules to follow in order to win the Nobel Prize in literatureThere are acclaimed writers— James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Tolstoy, Mark Twain— who never won the Nobel Prize, and others, less well known, such as Henryk Sienkiewicz, Paul Heyse, and Romain Rolland, who did. What exactly does one have to do to impress, or be snubbed by, the Nobel Committee? This book is a fascinating survey of the Nobel Prize for literature, constructed as a tongue-in-cheek series of rules. "Be a man" is one of them, and "Make sure your best work has been translated into Swedish" another. Presenting biographical information as well as extracts from their work, David Carter will try to answer a number of questions about the prize, such as What are the outstanding qualities of the winners' works? Were there any unusual circumstances attending the award? and Who else was considered and rejected and why?
Winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Poetry A luminous, seductive new collection from the "fearless" (The New York Times) Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Louise Glück is one of the finest American poets at work today. Her Poems 1962–2012 was hailed as "a major event in this country's literature" in the pages of The New York Times. Every new collection is at once a deepening and a revelation. Faithful and Virtuous Night is no exception. You enter the world of this spellbinding book through one of its many dreamlike portals, and each time you enter it's the same place but it has been arranged differently. You were a woman. You were a man. This is a story of adventure, an encounter with the unknown, a knight's undaunted journey into the kingdom of death; this is a story of the world you've always known, that first primer where "on page three a dog appeared, on page five a ball" and every familiar facet has been made to shimmer like the contours of a dream, "the dog float[ing] into the sky to join the ball." Faithful and Virtuous Night tells a single story but the parts are mutable, the great sweep of its narrative mysterious and fateful, heartbreaking and charged with wonder.
The Nobel Prize, regardless of category, has always been surrounded by politics, intrigue, and even scandal. But those pale in comparison to the Peace Prize, which remains the most prestigious, admired, and controversial prize of our time. Norwegian writer Unni Turrettini completely upends what we thought we knew about the Peace Prize—both it’s history and how it is awarded. As 1984’s winner, Desmond Tutu, put it, “No sooner had I got the Nobel Peace Prize than I became an instant oracle.” However, the Peace Prize as we know it is corrupt at its core. In the years surrounding World War I and II, the Nobel Peace Prize became a beacon of hope, and, through its peace champions, became a reference and an inspiration around the world. But along the way, something went wrong. Alfred Nobel made the mistake of leaving it to the Norwegian Parliament to elect the members of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, which has filled the committee with politicians more loyal to their political party’s agenda than to Nobel’s prize's perogative. As a result, winners are often a result of political expediency. Betraying the Nobel, will delve into the surprising, and often corrupt, history of the prize, and examine what the committee hoped to obtain by its choices, including the now-infamously awarded Cordell Hull, as well as Henry Kissinger, Al Gore, and Barack Obama. Turrettini shows the effects of increased media attention, which have turned the Nobel into a popularity prize, and a controversial, trouble-provoking commendation. Selecting winners who are clearly not peace champions creates distrust. So does lack of transparency in the selection process. As trust in leadership and governance reaches historic lows, the Nobel Peace Prize is a symbolic reference as to how we, as a society, are doing. The modern betrayal of the Nobel’s spirit and intentions plays a key role in keeping societal dysfunctions alive. But there is hope.Betraying the Nobel will show how the Nobel Peace Prize can again become a beacon of hope and honorable leadership. The Prize can and should be a catalyst for change—and an inspiration for rest of us into our own greatness and become the peace champions our world needs.