After Herman Melville published his book, Moby Dick, in 1851, no one saw whales in quite the same way again. But what is the true nature of the whale? Why does it fascinate us? In Leviathan, Phillip Hoare seeks to locate and identify his life-long obsession with whales. Why does the whale so vividly inhabit our imaginations? Travelling around the globe in search of the whale, Philip Hoare sheds light on our fascination with the strange creatures of the sea, whose nature remains tantalisingly undiscovered.

“Hoare's personal pilgrimage, wandering, reflective, frequently very personal, owes much to WG Sebald, including the device of peppering the text with black and white pictures. Whales have a very intimate and troubled relationship to man, one which this elegiac book does much to illuminate.”  Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

WILLIAM HILL’S ODDS FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE SHORTLIST

• 2/1 Leviathan by Phillip Hoare
• 3/1 The Lost City of Z by David Grann
• 4/1 Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
• 9/2 Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed
• 5/1 The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
• 6/1 Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar

The judges will announce the winner of the prize at an awards ceremony at King’s Place, London on 30 June. Formerly The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize, the change in name reflects the BBC’s commitment to broadcasting coverage of the prize on a special edition of The Culture Show which goes out on BBC TWO at 11.20pm on the night of the award.

Chair of the judges, Jacob Weisberg is joined by Dr Mark Lythgoe, neuroscientist at University College London and Director of the Cheltenham Science Festival; Tim Marlow, writer, broadcaster and art historian and director of exhibitions at White Cube; Munira Mirza, Director of Policy, Arts, Culture and the Creative Industries at the Mayor of London’s office; and Sarah Sands, Deputy Editor at the London Evening Standard.

 
Former Winners

• 1999               Stalingrad by Antony Beevor (Penguin)
• 2000               Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness by David Cairns (The Penguin Press)
• 2001               The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh (Macmillan)
• 2002               Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by Margaret Macmillan (John Murray)
• 2003               Pushkin: A Biography by T.J. Binyon (HarperCollins)
• 2004               Stasiland by Anna Funder (Granta)
• 2005               Like a Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe (Picador)
• 2006               1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro (Faber & Faber)
• 2007               Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Bloomsbury)
• 2008               The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury)

-ends- 

For more information please contact Hannah Blake at Colman Getty

T 020 7631 2666 or E hannah@colmangetty.co.uk

Graham Sharpe at William Hill T 020 8918 3731

E gsharpe@williamhill.co.uk
 
Notes to Editors
 

• The winner will be announced at an awards event at King’s Place, London on 30 June
   
• There were 166 entries in total and 19 titles on the longlist and 6 on the shortlist
   
• Electronic images of the shortlisted books and authors are available from Colman Getty
   
• Photographs of the judges and the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction logo are available from Colman Getty
   
• The judges may be available for interview and can be contacted through Colman Getty
   
• The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is open to books in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. Books published in English by writers of any nationality are eligible for the prize, provided they are published in the UK between 1 May 2008 and 30 April 2009
   
• The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is managed by a steering committee and administered by Colman Getty. The steering committee is made up of Stuart Proffitt, Chair, (Publishing Director, Penguin), Antony Beevor (historian and author), Peter Florence (Director of the Guardian Hay Festival),  Dotti Irving (Chief Executive, Colman Getty), Mervyn King (Governor, The Bank of England), Toby Mundy, (CEO of Atlantic Books), James Naughtie (broadcaster, BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme), Alan Rusbridger (Editor of The Guardian), Peter Straus (literary agent, Rogers, Coleridge and White) and Martin Taylor (International Adviser for Goldman Sachs)