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2004 - Longlist
“Grand sweep history”, “left-of-field
travelogues” and “unexpected oddities” make
this year’s wide-ranging longlist
The judges for the UK’s most valuable prize for non-fiction
announce the longlist for the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize
2004, today (Friday 19 March). £30,000 goes to the
winner to reward the best of non-fiction published in the
UK today.
From 120 entries and 5 call-ins, the 23 titles on the longlist
range widely in subject matter. From Eastern Europe and Russia
in the last century to an analysis of our planet’s
survival in the future; journeying from London’s Hoxton
to Africa’s Zanzibar, and exploring the characters
of George Orwell, Margaret Thatcher and John McEnroe; this
year’s BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize longlist is diverse,
thought-provoking and entertaining.
Michael Wood, Chair of the judges, comments:
‘We have already had a lot of fun whittling down a
huge and impressive entry. The longlist seems to all of us
to epitomise the best of UK non-fiction today, in both its
variety and its quality: from grand sweep history to first-rate
political and literary biography, and from left-of-field
travelogues to some terrific and unexpected oddities. It’s
not often you can say this of a literary prize, but every
book on this long list is a work of real character and interest.’
The judges for the 2004 prize are: writer and broadcaster,
Michael Wood (Chair); author, broadcaster and journalist,
Aminatta Forna; political editor of BBC TV’s Newsnight, Martha
Kearney; science writer and broadcaster, Simon Singh; and
author, journalist and broadcaster, Francis Wheen.
The shortlist for the prize will be announced at Samuel
Johnson’s House on Tuesday 4 May. The winner
of The BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2004
will be announced at an awards dinner at the Savoy Hotel
in London on Tuesday 15 June.
THE LONGLIST:
| Author |
Title |
Publisher |
Tim Adams |
On Being John McEnroe |
Yellow Jersey Press |
| Anne Applebaum |
Gulag: A History
of the Soviet Camps |
Allen Lane/Penguin |
| Jonathan Bate |
John Clare: A Biography |
Picador |
| Bill Bryson |
A Short History
of Nearly Everything |
Doubleday |
| James Buchan |
Capital of the
Mind: How Edinburgh Changed
the World |
John Murray |
| John Campbell |
Margaret Thatcher
Vol 2:The Iron Lady |
Jonathan Cape |
| Kate Colquhoun |
A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph
Paxton |
4th Estate |
| David Edmonds & John Eidinow |
Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost
the Most Extraordinary Match of All Time |
Faber & Faber |
| Anna Funder |
Stasiland: Stories
from Behind the Berlin Wall |
Granta |
| Aidan Hartley |
The Zanzibar Chest:
A Memoir of Love and War |
HarperCollins |
| Tom Holland |
Rubicon: The Triumph
and Tragedy of the RomanRepublic |
Little, Brown |
| John Keay |
Sowing the Wind |
John Murray |
| Mark Lynas |
High Tide: News
from a Warming World |
Flamingo |
| Graham Robb |
Rimbaud |
Picador |
| Lorna Sage |
Bad Blood |
4th Estate |
| Diarmaid MacCulloch |
Reformation: Europe’s
House Divided 1490 - 1700 |
Allen Lane/Penguin |
| Robert Macfarlane |
Mountains of the
Mind: A History of Fascination |
Granta |
| Robert Skidelsky |
John Maynard Keynes |
Macmillan |
| In Siberia |
Colin Thubron |
Chatto & Windus |
| Karl Marx |
Francis Wheen |
4th Estate |
| Bryan Magee |
Clouds of Glory: A Hoxton Childhood |
Jonathan Cape |
| Martin Rees |
Our Final Century |
Heinemann |
| Simon Sebag Montefiore |
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar |
Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Francis Spufford |
Backroom Boys: The
Secret Return of the British Boffin |
Faber & Faber |
| D.J. Taylor |
Orwell : The
Life |
Chatto & Windus |
| Hugh Thomas |
Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire |
Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Lynne Truss |
Eats, Shoots and Leaves |
Profile |
| The
Journals of a White Sea Wolf |
Mariusz Wilk |
Harvill Press |
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