Translated material
Their enlighteners
Review of English-language awards for the best non-fiction
On November 15, Moscow was awarded in Moscow for 2018. At the request of Gorky, Denis Peskov talks about the most famous English and American awards that are awarded to the best popular science books.Royal Society Science Books Prize
The Royal Society Prize (the British analogue of the Academy of Sciences) is annual (size £ 25,000) and is awarded to outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is intended for authors of books written for a wide audience, appeared in 1988, and among its laureates - Stephen Hawking, Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gold and Bill Brayson. In 2015, The Guardian called the award “The most prestigious prize in the field of popular science literature in the UK”.
Last year, the triumph was celebrated by Cordelia Fain with her topical “Testosterone Rex. Myths are true about gender consciousness ”(Fantom Press, 2017). The winner of this year is Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain (inventing yourself: The secret life of the teenage brain) Sarah-Jezin Blackmore. Most likely, for the relevance of the topic (brain) and freshness of subtans (the rapid changes that occur in it after the beginning of puberty).
Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
This award is the main rival of the previous one. Bailey Gifford Award for non-artistic literature (previously Samuel Johnson Award) is the annual British award for the best non-fiction in English. Founded in 1999. The prize covers current events, history, politics, science, sports, travel, biography, autobiography and art. The competition can be attended by authors with any citizenship, whose works are published in the UK in English. The prize fund is £ 30,000 for the winner. The prize is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the UK.
The winner of 2018 was Sergey Padoy with the book Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy (Chernobyl: History of the Tragedy), which has bypassed the famous enlightener Karl Zimmer with his new book She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity (she laughs as a mother: opportunities, deviations and potential of heredity). Last year, the first prize went to David France and its investigation of the AIDS epidemic - How to Survive A Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed Aids (how to survive the plague: History about how citizens and science tamed AIDS).
Wellcome Book Prize
The annual British Literary Prize sponsored by the WellCome Trust Foundation. She notes “Themes of Health and Medicine in Literature”, including art and popular science literature. The winner receives £ 30,000, which makes the award "one of the most profitable literary awards from the currently existing." A number of bestseller prize littered in the short linems from us and with us: Henry march, Sidhartha Mukerji, Ed Yong and "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax." The cycle of this award is located in the “Enlightener” antiphase: the short list and the winner is announced in the spring. Last year's winner was to be a machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death (to be a machine: the adventures of cyborgs, utopians and futurists who decide to modestly decide modest modest The problem of death) Mark O'Connella.
Pulitzer Prize
"Pulitzer!" -the amateur photographer exclaims when he is especially satisfied with the resulting photograph. The legendary award, which is already more than a hundred years; The winner receives $ 15,000. However, the prestige of the award surpasses its money equivalent. The American prize, and the organizing committee is especially not indifferent to local. However, it all depends on the nomination. The most cosmopolitan nomination is General Nonfiction. There is a very wide circle of topics and countries where the authors come from. BIOGRAPHY or AUTOBIOGRAPHY - the United States dominate here. Pulitzer Prize for History is actually completely devoted to the United States (and their activities abroad). In the 2010s, out of almost three dozen nominees and winners, only one book has a more or less universal scale-a very decent “Empire of Cotton: World History” Sven Beckert, which recently published in Russian (business, 2018).
PEN/EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
The American PEN/EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award is awarded for brilliant work in the field of physical or biological sciences. It was founded by E. Wilson, who himself wrote a lot of high-quality popular science books. The award includes a cash prize of $ 10,000. The next presentation will take place in February 2019. 2018 became The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (artisan crafts: how Joseph Lister converted the terrible world of Victorian Medicine) Lindsay Fitzharris. If you use listerin, they must read.
It is also worth paying attention to other awards of the American PEN center, namely PEN/John Kenneth Galbrait For Nonfiction and Pen/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Among the nominees and winners there are interesting work. For the first, they also give 10,000, for the second - half as much.
Pen Hessell-Tiltman Prize
An interesting British prize, which is already awarded by the English PEN center for history books on events in 1945 inclusive. However, among the nominees of 2017, I discovered a work on the cultural revolution in China, and in the 2018 short list I also appeared in Masha Hessen about modern Russia The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (the future is a story: how totalitarianism conquered Russia). The size of the prize is 2,000 pounds, the winner of 2018 was the book about our revolution Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 (Revolution in Russia: Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928) Steve Smith.
National Academies Communication Award
The US National Academy of Sciences awards the annual award for works that help society better understand science, technology or medicine. The prize was established in 2003. The prize $ 20,000 is awarded in four categories, of which, of course, we are only interested in the “book”. The winners of the last ten years are of unconditionally wonderful books, I say, because I read them myself. There is even a history of history (1491: New Revelations of the America Before Columbus - superwecies), although history has not been made in the description of the award. Among the authors-triumphs: Neil Shubin, D. Kaneman, Walter Isexon, Matt Ridley and Mark Medovnik, who received the prize for the book “What is it made of? Amazing materials from which modern civilization is built ”, published in us in 2016. The winner of 2018 Dan Igan, who wrote about the difficult environmental situation with the American great lakes in The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (death and life of great lakes).
Wolfson History Prize
Another great British prize for historians. Among the winners of past years are now Mary Bird , Adam Tuz , Yang Kershaw, and Christopher Clark. Many winning books are devoted to our history: from empire to the USSR. This year, the work of Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (heretics and believers: the history of the English reformation) Peter Marshall won. The winner received 40,000 pounds, finalists of 4,000 pounds.
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Circle of Book Critics is a literary and book award awarded in the United States since 1975. The prize is awarded by the national circle of book critics - an organization uniting literary critics and book observers. It is awarded in many nominations. We are interested in General Nonfiction (in 2005, long before Nobel, Svetlana Aleksievich won with the “Chernobyl prayer”. In 2014, T. Picketti was ...), Biography (in the past, 2017, in the short list was the future long-awaited premiere from Corpus “Gorbachev. His life. and time "W. Taubman) and Memoir/autobiography (in 2017 among the nominees-autobiography Lyudmila Petrushevskaya). The winner of 2018 will be announced in early 2019.
National Book Award for Nonfiction
The National Book Prize for non -artistic literature is awarded annually by the National Book Fund in recognition of outstanding literary works of US citizens. These are awards of "writers to writers." The jury participates five "writers known to a great contribution to literature in their genre or region." The reward is $ 10,000. Do not be afraid of the criterion for presentation - "Americans." And the Americans are different (in 2017 the prize went to Masha Hessen for the already mentioned The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia), and they write not only about the United States (in 2015 in the short-list, Sa Montgomery with its wonderful “The shower of the oxmino: the secrets of the consciousness of an amazing creature”, the emerging of an amazing creature , ”who came out This year, in the long list of this year, there is a curious work of D. Kuamman The Tangled Tree: a Radical New History of Life, whose "infections transmitted from animals can lead to a deadly global epidemic."
Kirkus Prize
In 2014, Kirkus Reviews (American Book Journal) launched his Kirkus Prize Award. The prize is $ 50,000 to authors of art, scientific and youth literature. In previous years, the short-list of Nonfixna has always been distinguished by an excellent taste and a variety of topics affected. Often these books did not appear in the lists of other awards, making Kirkus Prize especially interesting. In the 2018 sample, books are mainly about America. The winner of 2018: Call them by Their True Names: American Crises (call them real names: American crises) Rebecca piles.
The winner of 2018: Call them by their True Names: American Crice (and Essays) Rebecca Sulfur.
Goodreads Choice Awards
Goodreads.com is a popular reader resource with millions of participants from around the world. Last year, almost 4 million people participated in the vote for the best book in 20 categories. The scientific scientific is smeared there in four nominations: in addition to “Nonfiction”, it is worth paying attention to the sections “Memoirs & Autobiography”, “History & Biography”, “Science & Technology”, and also not to forget about the “Food & Books on Culinary” section. This year, among the applicants - Milk Mark Kuranski. Nonfiction presents a wide range of works, among them new books by Taleba, Pinker, Harari, Woodworda. Even Madlen Albright herself was a book.
I could not resist and looked into the anniversary 10th competition, whose long longers have already been hung out. Alas, almost all the nominees in the “History & Biography” in 2018 are devoted to the United States: (But in “Food” there is a history of milk and milk by M. Kuransky, about which I wrote for “Gorky”. In “Science & Technology”, I have almost all of this long-list and half exactly worthy of reading. Two books are about the same-decoding and interpretation of human DNA. This is about the relevance of the theme, and the serious competition among the Western nonsense writers. I voted for the important work of one familiar researcher, which I already wrote in Forbes.
Bill Gates Books
No matter how you relate to this person, he (or his advisers on the issue) has a very good taste, so his list of “5 of my favorite books of the year”, announced in early December, is not a fool. 2-3 of them, I myself can be enthusiastically recommended to anyone with enthusiasm. Gates, as I understand it, does not distribute money to the finalists, but getting into this sheet for the book and the writer, perhaps more useful than a check with zeros.