Novelists shine in Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize
Lindesay Irvine writing in The Guardian, Wednesday April 16, 2008

Left, VS Naipaul: one of the subjects in the running for the Samuel Johnson prize

Novelists make up a surprisingly big presence in the longlist for this year's Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, with memoirs of JG Ballard, VS Naipaul and Julian Barnes in the running for the £30,000 award.

The 20 books in contention for the prize also feature a number of very personal takes on subjects including mathematics, climate change and national traumas in Northern Ireland and Congo.

Full comment from The Guardian here.

The longlist in full

Mad, Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi (Virago)

Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape)

Miracles of Life by J G Ballard (Harper Collins)

Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher (Chatto & Windus)

Crow Country by Mark Cocker (Jonathan Cape)

Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry by Marcus Du Sautoy (Fourth Estate)

The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French (Picador)

The Whisperers by Orlando Figes (Penguin Press)

Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh (Fig Tree)

Austerity Britain 1945-1951 by David Kynaston (Bloomsbury)

Mrs Woolf and the Servants by Alison Light (Fig Tree)

Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes by Ferdinand Mount (Bloomsbury)

Watching the Door by Kevin Myers (Atlantic Books)

Confessions of an Eco Sinner: Travels to Find Where My Stuff Comes from by Fred Pearce (Eden Project Books)

Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland by Jonathan Powell (Bodley Head)

The Discovery of France by Graham Robb (Picador)

A Life of Picasso: Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 vol 3 by John Richardson (Jonathan Cape)

The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross (Fourth Estate)

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury)

The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf (William Heinemann)