Trivedi Prize 2024 shortlist announced by the Royal Society

The shortlist for the 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize has been announced. Six titles have been shortlisted for the award which celebrates the best popular science writing.

The announcement was made by one of this year’s five judges, Bobby Seagull, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival following an event with the prize’s 2020 winner, Camilla Pang.

All of this year’s authors make the list for the first time, with books that cover an array of scientific themes, including the science of the ageing, extinction events and space travel. The shortlist was selected from 254 submissions published between 1 July 2023 and 30 September 2024.

The full shortlist

• 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 AI 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)

Professor John Hutchinson, chair of the 2024 judges, said: “Competition for this shortlist was extreme. The year 2023-2024 has been an incredible for great science books. Our shortlist spans a wonderful variety of 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.

"There’s something for everyone interested in science here, whether it’s for your own leisure reading and enlightenment, a generous gift for someone else, or for education in STEM disciplines. Humanity needs creative and scholarly books like these that digest the huge wealth of modern scientific understanding and translate it into accessible impact.”

Alongside Professor John Hutchinson, the 2024 judging panel comprises Booker Prize-winning author and screenwriter Eleanor Catton; New Scientist comment and culture editor Alison Flood; teacher, broadcaster and writer Bobby Seagull; and lecturer in functional materials at Imperial College London and Royal Society University research fellow, Dr Jess Wade.

President of the Royal Society, Sir Adrian Smith FRS, said: “Science is central to all of our lives and is woven through every aspect of our existence. For this reason, people from all walks of life should be able to access it easily. Our Trivedi Science Book Prize 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 winner of this year’s prize 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.