{"id":1827,"date":"2013-10-08T16:48:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T16:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2013-10-08T16:48:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T16:48:13","slug":"book-prizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/2013\/10\/08\/book-prizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Book prizes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book prize season is upon us. Prizes can be controversial things<\/a> and there is often a dollop of subjectivity in the decision-making, but book prize shortlists can be useful for the lazy person (like me) as they offer a suggested reading-list. Recent scientific book prize shortlists have some good pickings for the scientific bookworm.<\/p>\n

The Royal Society have announced the shortlist for their\u00a0Winton Prize<\/a>, ranging from cell biology to the Higgs boson, memory and marine biology. They also have a prize for science books aimed at young people<\/a> and that shortlist is out too.<\/p>\n

A new prize from this year, the Society of Biology Book Awards, has\u00a0issued its shortlist<\/a>. There are three awards, for an undergraduate textbook, a postgraduate textbook and a general biology book. In the latter category they include two of the books on the Royal Society shortlist, plus one that was on last year’s Royal Society shortlist.<\/p>\n

The British Medical Association are a bit ahead of the game and have already announced their award winners<\/a>. They have a range of different prizes, mostly textbooks or professional bookss but with some more general categories. There are \u00a0winners and commended titles in each category, making for a long list.<\/p>\n

There is a Wellcome Trust book prize<\/a> too but their schedule is different – the next shortlist will be announced in Feb 2014.<\/p>\n

Away from strictly science, the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction<\/a> shortlist has been published. There is a book about bees in there, but otherwise no science. \u00a0Harriet Tuckey’s book about physiologist Griffith Pugh<\/a>\u00a0was on the longlist and I had hopes that it might get through, but sadly it did not. I see that last year’s winner was a book about Everest so perhaps the judges had had enough of mountain climbing.<\/p>\n

Harriet’s book is still in with a chance of the HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize<\/a> though, due to be revealed in November.<\/p>\n

No doubt this time next year the prize shortlists will all be featuring\u00a0Henry Gee’s latest book<\/a>. I’ve not read it yet but it is certainly going on my reading list.<\/p>\n

Some lists<\/h2>\n

Royal Society Winton prize shortlist:<\/p>\n