Royal Society Science Book Prize shortlist announced

Announcing our 2018 #scibooks prize shortlist. Celebrating outstanding popular science books from around the world @InsightInvestIM https://t.co/dhlFsCQLNx pic.twitter.com/oCURZRAFXr

— The Royal Society (@royalsociety) August 2, 2018

The 2018 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize has announced its shortlist:

• Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore;
• The Unexpected Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos and Other Wild Tales by Lucy Cooke;
• The Beautiful Cure: Harnessing Your Body’s Natural Defences by Daniel Davis;
• Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine by Hannah Fry;
• Liquid: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives by Mark Miodownik;
• Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World by Simon Winchester.

For the mathematically-minded, the highlight of the list is probably Hannah Fry’s upcoming Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine, published next month. Certainly the news has Hannah excited! An extract entitled ‘Can crime be predicted by an algorithm?‘ has been released by the publisher, Penguin.

The prize is judged by a panel of expert judges. A page about the prize says that “the winner will be announced at the award ceremony, taking place on Monday 1 October presented by Professor Brian Cox. The ceremony is open to the public and free to attend.” Though, curiously, the Royal Society website public events page has no listings for 1st October at present.