The Baillie Gifford Prize (previously the Samuel Johnson Prize), which celebrates the best of non-fiction writing, announced their shortlist last week. The nominees’ works explored topics such identity, gender, algorithmic governing, and geopolitical dynamics through history, popular science, and memoir. The award will be announced on November 14.
This year’s shortlist includes the following six titles:
- Hello World: How to be Human in The Age of The Machine by Hannah Fry
- The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
- Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee
- Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age by Stephen R Platt
- Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy
- She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity by Carl Zimmer
