Listed below are fiction and non fiction books based on nuclear events.

The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham
(TEENAGE/YOUNG ADULT) – Fiction
Science fiction classic set in a post-nuclear war world where long-term radioactive fallout resulted in human genetic mutations. This novel won’t teach you much about nuclear issues, as it deals more with social exclusion and religious fanaticism, but, written in 1955, it is representative of a certain post-World War II literature with its fears about the effects of nuclear technology and nuclear catastrophe.

The Gadget, by Paul Zindel (TEENAGE/YOUNG ADULT) – Fiction
A suspense novel based on historical facts, it tells the story of a boy investigating the truth about Los Alamos – the scientific laboratory where the atomic bomb was developed – in the months before the first bomb was dropped.

Generation X, by Douglas Coupland
(YOUNG ADULT/ADULT) – Fiction
A tribute to the quiet post-baby boom generation, born in the late 1950s and 1960s, which distanced itself from middle-class corporate America. Over-educated and under-employed, haunted by the nuclear threat and unable to plan their future, they reflect on contemporary culture and try to find a meaning to life.

Hiroshima, by John Hersey
(YOUNG ADULT/ADULT) – Non-Fiction
Account of the bombing of Hiroshima built around the experience of six survivors.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki (New Perspectives), by RG Grant
(CHILDREN) – Non-Fiction
Tells the story of the dropping of the first atomic bomb from the perspective of the scientists, the politicians, the military and the victims.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes,by Eleanor Coerr
(CHILDREN) – Non-Fiction
The real story of Sadako, a Hiroshima child who died from leukaemia, and raced against time to fold one thousand paper cranes to verify the legend that by doing so a sick person can be healed.

When the Wind Blows, by Raymond Briggs (CHILDREN/TEENAGE/ADULT) – Fiction
This graphic novel in cartoon form is set in England during the Reagan-Thatcher years of the early eighties. It covers the final days of an ordinary English couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs, as they struggle against the effects of a nuclear strike.