Samuel Johnson Prize

Citizenkelly bought this prize to my attention and I will post the longlist and then the short list for 2008 on the next posting. Interested to know if anyone has read any of these - comments please.

Mad, Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi (Virago)

Miracles of Life by JG Ballard (Harper Collins)

Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape)

Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher (Chatto & Windus)

Crow Country by Mark Cocker (Jonathan Cape)

Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry by Marcus du Sautoy (Fourth Estate)

The Whisperers by Orlando Figes (Penguin)

The Authorized Biography of VS Naipaul by Patrick French (Picador)

Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh (Fig Tree)

Austerity Britain 1945-1951 by David Kynaston (Bloomsbury)

Mrs Woolf and the Servants by Alison Light (Fig Tree)

Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes by Ferdinand Mount (Bloomsbury)

Watching the Door by Kevin Myers (Atlantic Books)

Confessions of an Eco Sinner by Fred Pearce (Eden Project Books)

Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland by Jonathan Powell (Bodley Head)

A Life of Picasso, Volume III: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 by John Richardson (Jonathan Cape)

The Discovery of France by Graham Robb (Picador)

The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross (Fourth Estate)

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury)

The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf (William Heinemann)

This is the shortlist:

THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER
By Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury)
Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of the 1860s, investigates a country house murder in which the grieving family are the suspects.


BLOOD RIVER: A JOURNEY TO AFRICA'S BROKEN HEART
By Tim Butcher (Vintage)
The author recreates HM Stanley's famous expedition through the Congo. Solo.


CROW COUNTRY
By Mark Cocker (Jonathan Cape)
A prose poem in a long tradition of English pastoral writing, this book pieces together the complexities of the inner lives of rooks and jackdaws.


THE WHISPERERS: PRIVATE LIFE IN STALIN'S RUSSIA
By Orlando Figes (Allen Lane)
The hidden histories of the ordinary people who lived under Stalin's tyranny.

THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF V.S. NAIPAUL
By Patrick French (Picador)
A luminous account of one of the most compelling literary figures of the last 50 years.

THE REST IS NOISE: LISTENING TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
By Alex Ross (Fourth Estate)
A sweeping musical history, from the salons of pre-war Vienna to Velvet Underground shows in the 60s.

Okay, Kiwidoc . . . I am I total Philistine? I've never heard of the Samuel Johnson Prize. I'm guessing it's for non-fiction?? But I don't know because I haven't even heard of any of these books. Like I said, I think I may be a Philistine (damn! I never wanted to be one of those).

Anyway, the title Mrs. Woolf and the Servants intrigues me (no touchstone today). I wonder if it about Virginia Woolf. Apparently she was very uncomfortable with servants (as shown nicely in the movie The Hours). I'll have to look that one up, because I like reading about Virginia Woolf even more than I like reading Virginia Woolf.

I have The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective here in the TBR pile, but that's as close as I come to reading anything on the list.

Figes was robbed of the prize 5 years when Natasha's Dance, a fantastic cultural history of Russia, didn't win.

I have read "Great Hatred, Little Room" and wrote a few thoughts at http://isthistheway.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/great-hatred-li.html

From the BBC web site:

"This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Samuel Johnson Prize. Sponsored by BBC Four, it celebrates diverse and thought-provoking writing in non-fiction. The prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English."

Here are the past winners:

2007
Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

2006
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro

2005
Like A Fiery Elephant: The Story of BS Johnson by Jonathan Coe

2004
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder

2003
Pushkin: A Biography by TJ Binyon

2002
Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by Margaret MacMillan (That looks like it might be the UK title and that the US title is Paris 1919.)

2001
The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh

2000
Berlioz Volume 2: Servitude and Greatness by David Cairns

1999
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher wins.

The longlist for the 2009 prize was announced today:

Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate

Pompeii by Mary Beard

A Fork in the Road by André Brink

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton

Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Patricia Fara

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

Leviathan by Philip Hoare

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by
Richard Holmes

A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families by Michael Holroyd

Darwin's Island by Steve Jones

Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar

The Man Who Invented History by Justin Marozzi

Hester: the Remarkable Life of Dr Johnson's 'Dear Mistress' by Ian McIntyre

A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland

Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History by Adam Nicolson

The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani

The House of Wittgenstein by Alexander Waugh

BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON LONGLIST ANNOUNCED

Science dominates Samuel Johnson prize longlist

Thanks for posting that list, kidzdoc. I have the Wittgenstein bio waiting to be read and the Pompeii book. Some of the science books look very enticing.

I agree, kiwidoc, several of these books look enticing. The one I'm most interested in is Bad Science, which is based on a column that the author, a NHS physician, has written in The Guardian since 2003, also entitled Bad Science. I just learned about this today, and will be reading his articles from now on.

A Book of Silence, The Wisdom of Whores, and Science: A Four Thousand Year History also look interesting.

The shortlist for the award was announced today:

Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Leviathan by Phillip Hoare
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar

The winner of the award will be announced on June 30.

From my point of view, musician and reader, I'm most interested in The Age of Wonder.

Leviathan by Philip Hoare is the winner of this year's prize:

'Classic' study of whales wins Samuel Johnson prize

As someone who fell in love with Moby Dick last year, this is a defo read. Thanks for posting the link, kidzdoc.

The longlist for the 2010 award was announced last month:

The Music Instinct by Philip Ball

Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos

Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand

Making Haste from Babylon by Nick Bunker

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

Country Driving by Peter Hessler

The Secret Lives of Buildings by Edward Hollis

Blood Knots by Luke Jennings

Family Britain 1951–1957 by David Kynaston

On Roads by Joe Moran

When Skateboards Will Be Free by Said Sayrafiezadeh

Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Burying the Bones by Hilary Spurling

The Woman Who Shot Mussolini by Frances Stonor Saunders

A Gambling Man by Jenny Uglow (Faber and Faber)

Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham

thank you for posting this -- it's a new one to me.

From Wikipedia:

The Samuel Johnson Prize is one of the most prestigious prizes for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award and based on an anonymous donation. The prize is named after Samuel Johnson. The prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English.

From its inception until 2008 the award was fully named "The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize" and managed by BBC Four. In 2009 it was renamed as "BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction" and managed by BBC Two. The new name "reflects the BBC’s commitment to broadcasting coverage of the Prize on BBC 2, The Culture Show. Prior to the name change in 2009, the monetary prize amount was £30,000 for the winner, and each finalist received £2500. In 2009 the monetary prize is £20,000 for the winner, and each finalist receives £1000.

This article from the Guardian has more information about this year's award:

Samuel Johnson prize longlist spans the globe

Thanks for posting the list, Darryl. I am always interested in this prize list - such interesting looking books. I just finished last years winner, Leviathan: or the Whale by Phillip Hoare and can highly recommend it.

Thanks for posting the list! The only one I've read is Too Big to Fail, but I'd be happy to see that win - I couldn't put it down.

In anticipation of the winner being announced in July, the shortlist is:

* Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos (Bloomsbury)

* Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (Granta)

* Blood Knots by Luke Jennings (Atlantic Books)

* Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Penguin, Allen Lane)

* A Gambling Man by Jenny Uglow (Faber and Faber)

* Catching Fire: How Cooking made us Human by Richard Wrangham (Profile Books)

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick is the winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize:

Real-life stories from North Korea win Samuel Johnson prize

Thanks for posting the winner, kidzdoc. I have only read the Wrangham book on cooking and human evolution and it was really good. The Demick book is on my TBR pile.

The 2011 longlist for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize has been announced. The 18 books are:

Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett
Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan by Rodric Braithwaite
Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World by Guy Deutscher
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal
Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe by Frank Dikötter
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham-Dixon
Liberty's Exiles: The Loss of America and the Remaking of the British Empire by Maya Jasanoff
Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy by Anatole Kaletsky
Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation by Stuart Kelly
People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman by Richard Lloyd Parry
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley
Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg
Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War by John Stubbs
Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl: Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock
Bomber County by Daniel Swift
Sex Before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate Life in England 1918-1963 by Simon Szreter & Kate Fisher
Amexica by Ed Vulliamy

The only one I'm familiar with is The Hare With Amber Eyes, which of course won the Costa Biography award.

I almost bought the Stubbs book as it looked very interesting. Otherwise not familiar with any of these, and not sure if any appeal. There seems to be a bias towards biography in this list.

The shortlist for the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize has now been announced.

Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter
Caravaggio by Andrew Graham-Dixon
Liberty's Exiles by Maya Jasanoff
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg
Reprobates by John Stubbs

The winner is due to be revealed on 6 July. There will also be special of The Culture Show profiling the shortlist on BBC Two on 7 July.

I have just finished reading the study of Donne by John Stubbs (because it was available at the library and library books get read first!). It was a really excellent read. Great writer.

So I have Reprobates up next and then the bio of Caravaggio to read - although not likely to finish before the July announcement. For me, those are the two that appeal in content.

Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter is the winner of this year's award.

More info: http://www.thesamueljohnsonprize.co.uk/pages/news/index.asp?NewsID=32

Watching the BBC2 show last night unaware of the outcome, my partner and I both thought that Mao's Great Famine sounded like the most interesting and the most important of these six books. That's not to say that the other candidates were uninteresting, because we also thought the Caravaggio book and Liberty's Exiles sounded great too. I'm glad it won, and will now promptly share its prominence with my Mao-admiring History teacher cousin...

The longlist for this year's Samuel Johnson Prize, "the UK's pre-eminent prize for non-fiction", was announced earlier today:

One on One by Craig Brown
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hansen
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane
Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk
Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius by Sylvia Nasar
Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn (Allen Lane)
The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker
The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston
Strindberg: A Life by Sue Prideaux
Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

The winner will be announced on 12 November. More info:

Official release: The 2012 Prize

Guardian article: Rushdie memoir heads Samuel Johnson prize shortlist

The only one I have, and so far the only one I want to have, is Thinking, Fast and Slow, and it has not yet called loudly to me to read it, although I expect I will.

Robert

I bought Joseph Anton yesterday, and I've already started reading it. I don't own any of the others, though.

I've read Thinking, Fast and Slow and was impressed by it, but don't know enough about the other books to know whether it has a chance; my guess would be a more traditional history or biography would win. And even without having read any of the others, I'd put my money on the Rushdie.

This year's shortlist was announced earlier today:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum by Katherine Boo
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis
The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane
The Better Angels of our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity by Steven Pinker
The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain by Paul Preston
Strindberg: A Life by Sue Prideaux

The winner will be announced on November 12. More info:

Official announcement: Shortlist for 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize announced

Guardian article: Six books to 'change our view of the world' on shortlist for non-fiction prize

For members in the UK - BBC2's 'The Culture Show' this evening included a feature on the first three of the short-listed titles by Wade Davis, Steven Pinker and Paul Preston. It will be repeated in the week and is on I-Player.

The other three on the short-list will be featured next week.

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis is the winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction:

Tale of Everest and adventure, war and risk wins 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction

The longlist for this year's prize has just been announced:

Small Wars, Far Away Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World, 1945-1965 by Michael Burleigh
Empires of the Dead: How One Man's Vision Led to the Creation of WW1's War Graves by David Crane
Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42 by William Dalrymple
A Sting In The Tale by Dave Goulson
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins
The Memory Palace by Edward Hollis
The Pike by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Disraeli: or, The Two Lives by Douglas Hurd & Edward Young
Modernity Britain: Opening the Box by David Kynaston
Diana Vreeland: Empress of Fashion by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret MacMillan
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography by Charles Moore
Time's Anvil by Richard Morris
Edmund Burke: Philosopher, Politician, Prophet by Jesse Norman
The Story of the Jews by Simon Schama
Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
Everest: The First Ascent by Harriet Tuckey
Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe by Simon Winder

"This year’s shortlist will be announced on 30 September, and the winner on 4 November. The winner of the prize, the UK’s leading non-fiction prize, will receive £20,000."

More info: Longlist announced for Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2013

The 2013 shortlist has now been announced. It comprises:

Empires of the Dead by David Crane
Return of a King by William Dalrymple
A Sting In The Tale by Dave Goulson
Under Another Sky by Charlotte Higgins
The Pike by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography Volume One: Not for Turning by Charles Moore

The winner for this year's prize will be announced on Monday. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a link to last week's Culture Show on BBC Two which feature profiles of all six shortlisted books.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g6f82

Author Lucy Hughes-Hallett has won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for her biography of philandering Italian poet and politician Gabriele D'Annunzio. The Pike "transcends the conventions of biography", the judges said.

Wasn't expecting that! I thought they were going to give it to William Dalrymple for Return of a King.

This year's longlist has been announced:

Roy Jenkins: A Well-rounded Life by John Campbell
The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life by John Carey
God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England by Jessie Childs
The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts
Hack Attack by Nick Davies
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World by Greg Grandin
Common People: The History of An English Family by Alison Light
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
An Encyclopaedia of Myself by Jonathan Meades
Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France by Caroline Moorehead
The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicolson
In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815 by Jenny Uglow
Romany and Tom: A Memoir by Ben Watt

More info: Samuel Johnson prize 2014 longlist spotlights memoirs

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald is the winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Here's a description of it from The Guardian:

Describing the first time she laid eyes on Mabel, the hawk that would form the centrepiece of her life for over five years, Helen Macdonald’s book recalls her as “a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon from the pages of an illuminated bestiary. Something bright and distant, like gold falling through water.”

It is this unique, lyrical depiction of the relationship between human and wild falcon that led the judges of this year’s Samuel Johnson prize to name Macdonald’s book, H is for Hawk, the winner of the most prestigious accolade in nonfiction.

Part misery memoir, part naturalist diary, the book, documenting Macdonald’s attempts to win the trust of her goshawk Mabel as she struggled to deal with the death of her father, was described by the chair of the judging panel, Claire Tomalin, as “an extraordinary book that displayed an originality and a poetic power. None of us on the panel were either naturalists or wildlife enthusiasts but this book just took hold of us.”

Helen Macdonald’s ‘extraordinary’ memoir wins Samuel Johnson prize

Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman is the winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (2015)

The Baillie Gifford Prize aims to reward the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of any nationality. It covers all non-fiction in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts.

Formerly known as The Samuel Johnson Prize (1999 – 2015) it is the most prestigious non-fiction prize in the UK, worth £30,000 to the winner.

The winner of the 2016 prize will be announced on Tuesday 15 November.

The 2016 shortlist

• Second-hand Time, Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich
• Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson
• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, Hisham Matar
• East West Street, Philippe Sands

Sorry for completeness sake here is the long list

The longlist for the £30,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which celebrates the best in non-fiction writing, is announced today.

The ten titles on this year’s longlist are:
• Second-hand Time, Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich
• The Vanishing Man, Laura Cumming
• Being a Beast, Charles Foster
• Stalin and the Scientists, Simon Ings
• Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson
• This is London, Ben Judah
• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, Hisham Matar
• The Gene, Siddhartha Mukherjee
• East West Street, Philippe Sands
• Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey, Frances Wilson

The 2016 winner

• East West Street, Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Read more here.

The 2016 shortlist

• Second-hand Time, Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
• Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson (Granta Books)
• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, Hisham Matar (Viking)
• East West Street, Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)