This year’s General Prize shortlist for the Aventis Prizes for Science Books has been announced. (The Junior Prize shortlist was announced earlier on the April 19, and is listed for reference afterwards).
The Aventis General Prize shortlist of six books was chosen from a total of 106 entries (up almost 20% on the previous year), and a longlist of 15 titles. The prize will be awarded at the Royal Society in London on Monday June 14.
This year’s six General Prize shortlisted books are:
- In the Beginning Was the Worm by Andrew Brown (Simon & Schuster).
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (Doubleday/Transworld).
- Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi (HarperCollins).
- Nature via Nurture by Matt Ridley (Fourth Estate).
- Magic Universe by Nigel Calder (Oxford University Press).
- Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber).
Last year, the winner of the General Prize was:
- Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).
Previous winners during the prize’s 16-year history include, amongst the General Prize, Stephen Hawking for The Universe in a Nutshell, Brian Greene for The Elegant Universe, and Steve Jones for The Language of the Genes. Amongst the Junior Prize winners, Dorling Kindersley Guides have won the last four years running!
The selected books for this year’s Junior Prize shortlist were, as always, picked by children. The six books on the Aventis Junior Prize shortlist, which was announced on April 19, are:
- The Beginning: Voyages Through Time by Peter Ackroyd (Dorling Kindersley).
- Really Rotten Experiments by Nick Arnold & Tony De Saulles (Scholastic Children’s Books).
- Riotous Robots by Mike Goldsmith (Scholastic Children’s Books).
- Start Science: Forces and Motion by Sally Hewitt (Chrysalis Children’s Books).
- Survivor’s Science: In The Rainforest by Peter Riley (Hodder Wayland).
- Tell Me: Who Lives In Space? by Clare Oliver (Chrysalis Children’s Books).
Last year, the winner of the Junior Prize was:
- The DK Guide to the Oceans by Dr Frances Dipper (Dorling Kindersley).