-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
How to pronounce Paolo Giordano: approximately pow-lo jaw-darno
Paolo Giordano is the author of the internationally bestselling novel The Solitude of Prime Numbers (2010), which has been translated into more than forty languages, as well as The Human Body (2014), Like Family (2015), Heaven and Earth (2020), and the nonfiction title How Contagion Works (2020). His novel Tasmania is a bestseller in Italy and has been sold in more than thirty territories. Giordano has a PhD in particle physics and is a regular contributor to Corriere della Sera. He lives in Italy.
This bio was last updated on 09/17/2024. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
Q. You're a physicist. This is a book. What can a book tell us that a math problem can't?
A. Books (novels and poetry more than anything else) can tell us about the ambiguity of the world. While a math proof is either right or wrong, literature lies between the real and the unreal and is often an approximation of the truth. I think it is in this approximation that a book's fascination and humanity reside.
Q. What did your academic advisors in your physics program say when you told them you'd written a book?
A. Nobody knew anything until the book was published (not even my parents), so everybody's first reaction was, "A book? And when did you get the chance to write it?" In the beginning, my advisors were quite positive - they were amused by seeing my face on newspapers and in bookstore windows. Then, as the book became more successful, some started to feel bothered about it. I think it was partly because I wasn't able to devote myself to my work as seriously as before and partly because I was trading the scientific truth for a more (in their opinion) dubious art.
Q. Solitude is the story of two friends, one male and one female, over the course of twenty-five years. What was harder: writing from a child's...
Muriel Barbery's novels include the New York Times bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Europa, 2008), and Gourmet Rhapsody (Europa, 2009). She is also the author of The Writer's Cats, illustrated by Maria Guitart, a ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Try:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
Alina Bronsky (a pseudonym) was born in Yekaterinburg, an industrial town at the foot of the Ural Mountains in central Russia. She moved to Germany when she was thirteen. Broken Glass Park, nominated for one of Europe's most ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Try:
Broken Glass Park
by Alina Bronsky
We recommend 14 similar authors
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
