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Kashmir Hill and Cat Bohannon shortlisted for £25k Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize
The shortlist for the 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize worth £25,000 has been announced, featuring authors Kashmir Hill and Cat Bohannon among others.
Judge Bobby Seagull announced the six-strong shortlist for the award, which celebrates the best popular science writing from across the globe, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2024.
“All of this year’s authors make the list for the first time, with books that cover an array of important scientific themes through compelling and accessible storytelling,” organisers said.
The nominations were selected from 254 submissions published between 1st July 2023 and 30th September 2024.
The full shortlist in full
- Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon (Hutchinson Heinemann)
- Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World by Tom Chivers (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
- Your Face Belongs to Us: The Secretive Startup Dismantling Your Privacy by Kashmir Hill (Simon & Schuster)
- The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction by Gísli Pálsson (Princeton University Press)
- Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan (Hodder Press)
- A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (Particular Books)
Alongside professor John Hutchinson, who is chair, the judges included Booker Prize-winning author and screenwriter Eleanor Catton, New Scientist comment and culture editor Alison Flood, teacher, broadcaster and writer Bobby Seagull and Royal Society University research fellow, Dr Jess Wade, also an Imperial College London lecturer.
Hutchinson said: “Competition for this shortlist was extreme... It has been an incredible year for great science books.
“Our shortlist spans a wonderful variety of highly timely topics: from artificial intelligence and privacy issues to the challenges of space settlement, to the underappreciated importance of a statistical method, to the evolution of female reproductive biology, to the discovery of human-induced extinction itself and to the biology of ageing and death.
“Humanity needs creative and scholarly books like these that digest the huge wealth of modern scientific understanding and translate it into accessible impact.”
President of the Royal Society, Sir Adrian Smith PRS, said: “Our Trivedi Science Book Prize, the only one in the world dedicated to popular science writing, provides a vital link between the expert scientific community and the public, communicating pioneering but often technical research to mainstream audiences. Each of this year’s shortlisted books is a testament to both the wonders of science and the art of writing and bring these fascinating and varied areas of enquiry and discovery to curious readers everywhere.”
The Royal Society Science Book Prize has championed non-fiction books that celebrate the collective joy of science writing for more than 30 years.
The winner will be revealed at a ceremony at the Royal Society on 24th October, where he or she will be presented with a cheque for £25,000. Each of the five shortlisted authors will receive a cheque for £2,500.
