4 September 2012
SoA members, Peter James and Rose Tremain, are among authors competing on the longlist for this year's Wellcome Trust Book Prize, awarded to fiction or non-fiction on the theme of health, illness and medicine.
Five novels and nine works of non-fiction are in contention for the £25,000 prize, with the shortlist to be announced on 11 October and the winner to be announced on 7 November.
From music to madness and from anatomy to genetic engineering, the eclectic mix of books reflects the extraordinary number of ways in which authors can explore medicine to make it both engaging and accessible.
Clare Matterson, director of Medical Humanities and Engagement at the Wellcome Trust, said:
"These books challenge and entertain the reader in equal measures, but crucially make us reflect on the impact that medicine has on our lives.”
The longlist includes five novels and nine works of non-fiction:
- John Coates - 'The Hour Between Dog and Wolf' (Fourth Estate)
- Joshua Cody - '[Sic]' (Bloomsbury)
- Nick Coleman - 'The Train in the Night' (Jonathan Cape)
- Mohammed Hanif - 'Our Lady of Alice Bhatti' (Jonathan Cape)
- Peter James - 'Perfect People' (Macmillan)
- Harry Karlinsky - 'The Evolution of Inanimate Objects' (The Friday Project)
- Darian Leader - 'What is Madness?' (Hamish Hamilton)
- Ken Macleod - 'Intrusion' (Orbit)
- Professor Peter Piot - 'No Time to Lose' (W W Norton & Company)
- Michael Shermer - 'The Believing Brain' (Constable & Robinson)
- Tim Spector - 'Identically Different' (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson)
- Rose Tremain - 'Merivel: A man of his time' (Chatto & Windus)
- Thomas Wright - 'Circulation' (Chatto & Windus)
- Paul Zak - 'The Moral Molecule' (Transworld)