Bibliofemme News

There was a total of twenty books on the longlist for the £30,000 prize, which was announced in London yesterday.

The prize, which is sponsored by BBC Four, aims to reward the best of non-fiction, from biography, travel and popular science to the arts and current affairs.

The chair of the judges, broadcaster Sue MacGregor, said: "There were some we simply fell upon as being really mould-breaking books, that were really different from the door-stopping books that so often win the prizes. It's such a great longlist and there are interesting trends to spot."

MacGregor and the other judges - Marcus du Sautoy, Andrew Holgate, Maria Misra and John Simpson - will now narrow the longlist down to a shortlist, to be revealed on 12 May, with the winner named on 14 June.

Last year's winner was Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder.

Samuel Johnson Prize longlist
Perdita by Paula Byrne
Blood and Roses by Helen Castor
Like a Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe
Mary Wollstonecraft by Lyndall Gordon
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
Salonica by Mark Mazower
Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi
Maximum City by Suketu Mehta
Leonardo da Vinci by Charles Nicholl
Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk
In Command of History by David Reynolds
A Death in Brazil by Peter Robb
The Command of the Ocean by NAM Rodger
Matisse the Master by Hilary Spurling
Hawkwood by Frances Stonor Saunders
A Little History of British Gardening by Jenny Uglow
The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise

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