Royal Society Prizes for Science Books

The Royal Society Science Books Prize or Winton Prize is an annual £25,000 prize celebrating outstanding popular science books from around the world.^[1] It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and over the decades has championed writers such as Stephen Hawking, Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gould and Bill Bryson.

History

The Royal Society Science Books Prize was originally established as the "Science Books Prize" in 1988 with the aim of encouraging the writing, publishing and reading of good and accessible popular science books. From 1990-2000 it was known as the "Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books", from 2001-2006 as the "Aventis Prize for Science Books" and from 2007-2010 as the "Royal Society Prize for Science Books".

Judging Process

A panel of 5-6 judges decide the shortlist and the winner of the Prize each year. The panel is chaired by a fellow of the Royal Society and includes authors, scientists and media personalities. The judges for the 2015 prize include Professor Ian Stewart FRS, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Dr Adam Rutherford and Sarah Waters. All books entered for the prize must be published in English for the first time between September and October the preceding year. The winner is announced at an award ceremony in September and receives £25,000. Each of the other shortlisted authors receive £2,500 each.

Shortlisted books

Each year's shortlist appears below. A blue ribbon () appears against the winner.

2015

The shortlist was announced on August 5, 2015,^[2] and the winner on September 24, 2015.^[3]

• Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, Gaia Vince (Chatto & Windus)
• Life’s Greatest Secret, Matthew Cobb (Profile)
• Smashing Physics, Jon Butterworth (Headline)
• The Man Who Couldn’t Stop, David Adam (Picador)
• Alex Through the Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life, Alex Bellos (Bloomsbury)
• Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology, Johnjoe Mcfadden and Jim Al-Khalili (Bantam Press)

2014

• Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World, Mark Miodownik, (Viking - an imprint of Penguin Books)^[4]
• Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler, Philip Ball (The Bodley Head)
• Seven Elements That Have Changed The World: Iron, Carbon, Gold, Silver, Uranium, Titanium, Silicon, John Browne (Weidenfeld & Nicolson - an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group)
• The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity, Pedro G. Ferreira (Little, Brown Book Group)
• The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery, George Johnson (The Bodley Head)
• Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Mary Roach (Oneworld)

2013

• The Particle at the End of the Universe, Sean Carroll^[5]
• Bird Sense by Tim Birkhead
• Cells to Civilizations: The Principles of Change That Shape Life by Enrico Coen
• Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory by Charles Fernyhough
• The Book of Barely Imagined Beings by Caspar Henderson
• Ocean of Life by Callum Roberts

2012

• The Information, James Gleick^[6][7]
• Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer
• My Beautiful Genome, by Lone Frank
• The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene
• The Better Angels of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker
• The Viral Storm, by Nathan Wolfe

2011

• The Wavewatcher's Companion, Gavin Pretor-Pinney^[8]
• Alex’s Adventures in Numberland, Alex Bellos
• Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World, Guy Deutscher
• The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean
• Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science, Ian Sample
• The Rough Guide to The Future, Jon Turney

2010

• Life Ascending, Nick Lane^[9]
• A World Without Ice, Henry Pollack
• Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic, Frederick Grinnell
• God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science, James Hannam
• We Need To Talk About Kelvin, Marcus Chown
• Why Does E=mc2?, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

2009

• The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
• Decoding the Heavens by Jo Marchant
• What the Nose Knows by Avery Gilbert
• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
• Your Inner Fish - A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
• The Drunkard's Walk - How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow^[10]

2008

• Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas
• Coral - A Pessimist in Paradise by Steve Jones
• Gut Feelings by Gerd Gigerenzer
• A Life Decoded - My Genome: My Life by J. Craig Venter
• The Sun Kings - The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began by Stuart Clark
• Why Beauty is Truth - A History of Symmetry by Ian Stewart

2007

• Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
• Homo Britannicus by Chris Stringer
• In Search of Memory by Eric R. Kandel
• Lonesome George by Henry Nicholls
• One in Three by Adam Wishart
• The Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson

This was the first year that the prizes were given by the Royal Society.

2006

• Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World by David Bodanis
• Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane
• Empire of the Stars: Friendship, Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes, by Arthur I. Miller
• Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and our Future in the Cosmos, by Michio Kaku
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond
• The Truth About Hormones: What's Going on when We're Tetchy, Spotty, Fearful, Tearful or Just Plain Awful, by Vivienne Parry

It was Jared Diamond's third nomination for the prize, having won twice previously. The 2006 prize was the last one to be sponsored by the Aventis Foundation.

2005

• Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball ISBN 0-374-28125-4
• The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
• Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma
• Matters Of Substance: Drugs - And Why Everyone's A User by Griffith Edwards
• The Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey
• The Human Mind by Robert Winston

2004

• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• In The Beginning Was the Worm by Andrew Brown
• Magic Universe by Nigel Calder
• Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi
• Nature Via Nurture by Matt Ridley
• Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford
• How to Clone the Perfect Blonde by Sue Nelson and Richard Hollingham

2003

• Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus
• Small World by Mark Buchanan
• Reckoning With Risk by Gerd Gigerenzer
• The Extravagant Universe by Robert P. Kirshner
• The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
• Where Is Everybody? by Stephen Webb

2002

• The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking
• Aeons - The Search for the Beginning of Time by Martin Gorst
• The Secret Life of Dust by Hannah Holmes
• The Madness of Adam and Eve: Did Schizophrenia Shape Humanity? by David Horrobin
• A Primate's Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky
• Rivals - Conflict as the Fuel of Science by Michael White

2001

• Mapping the Deep by Robert Kunzig
• Creation: Life and How to Make It by Steve Grand
• Strange Beauty by George Johnson
• Mendel's Demon by Mark Ridley
• Mendeleyev's Dream by Paul Strathern
• Malignant Sadness by Lewis Wolpert

2000

• The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
• The White Death by Thomas Dormandy
• A Brief History of the Future by John Naughton
• Genome by Matt Ridley
• Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
• Children of Prometheus by Christopher Wills

Pre-2000 Winners

• (1999) The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Paul Hoffman
• (1998) Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
• (1997) The Wisdom of Bones, Alan Walker and Pat Shipman
• (1996) Plague’s Progress, Arno Karlen
• (1995) The Consumer’s Good Chemical Guide, John Emsley
• (1994) The Language of the Genes, Steve Jones
• (1993) The Making of Memory, Steven Rose
• (1992) The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond
• (1991) Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould
• (1990) The Emperor's New Mind, Roger Penrose
• (1989) Bones of Contention, Roger Lewin
• (1988) Living with Risk, British Medical Association Board of Science

References

1. Royal Society Science Books Prize, Royal Society
2. Lisa Campbell (August 5, 2015). "Winton Prize for Science Books shortlist revealed". The Bookseller.
3. Ian Sample (September 24, 2015). "Top science book prize won by woman for first time". The Guardian.
4. Melissa Hogenboom (10 November 2014). "Materials book wins Royal Society Winton Prize". BBC. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
5. http://royalsociety.org/awards/science-books/
6. "Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books". The Royal Society. Retrieved November 27, 2012.
7. "Shortlist- Royal Society Winton Prize". Royal Society. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
8. "Expert in idleness is surprise winner of science book prize", The Independent, 18 November 2011
9. Royal Society's science book prize will be the last 21 October
10. BBC Science News Prize for wonder of science past

External links

• Royal Society Science Books Prize
• Royal Society Prize at lovethebook