2005 - Shortlist

 THREE FIRST BOOKS ON A ‘BRILLIANT’ AND ‘ORIGINAL’ SHORTLIST

The judges for the UK’s most valuable prize for non-fiction today, Thursday 12 May, announce the shortlist for the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2005. The prize is worth £30,000 to the winner, and £1,000 to each of the 6 shortlisted authors.

The 2005 shortlist comprises:
you can click on the book title to read a sysnopsis of the book

Author	Title	Publisher
Jonathan Coe	Like a Fiery Elephant	Picador
Alexander Masters	Stuart: A Life Backwards	Fourth Estate
Suketu Mehta	MaximumCity	Review
Orhan Pamuk	Istanbul	Faber & Faber
Hilary Spurling	Matisse the Master	Hamish Hamilton
Sarah Wise	The Italian Boy	Jonathan Cape

The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction celebrates the very best in contemporary non-fiction publishing.

The 2005 shortlist this year includes an impassioned literary biography, a haunting and compelling look at modern Britain, two city love affairs, a biography of one of the twentieth century’s most iconic artists and a gruesome study of London in the 1830s. There are three first books in the list: Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters, MaximumCity by Suketu Mehta and The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise.

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