The shortlist for the Samuel Johnson Prize was announced today. The prize, run by the BBC, “aims to reward the best of non-fiction, from biography, travel and popular science to the arts and current affairs.” The winner will be announced on June 15th. Here are the shortlisted titles:
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
- Gulag by Anne Applebaum
- John Clare: A Biography by Jonathan Bate
- Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
- The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands by Aidan Hartley
- Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland
All in all, a pretty solid group of books
In other news, the cd from the little record label that my friend Derek and I run is now available at Amazon. It’s by a band called The Recoys or you can buy it through the Realistic Records homepage.
