New Science Book Prize for Writers and Publishers – shortlist announced

Teacher, blogger, palaeontologist, and science historian, these are some of the day jobs held by the writers whose books are shortlisted in the inaugural Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize announced today.

The judges, Professor Jean Fleming, Professor Harry Ricketts and Professor Brian Boyd, said “The quality and diversity of the books entered for the prize was wonderful to see.”

The Royal Society of New Zealand, our national science academy, established the prize for popular science books in December to celebrate the very best in this genre. The prize is $10,000 for the author(s) and $2,500 for the publisher.

The five shortlisted titles for the 2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize are:
The Awa Book of New Zealand Science edited by Rebecca Priestley (Awa Press)
Falling for Science by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press)
Hot Topic: Climate Change and the Future of New Zealand by Gareth Renowden (AUT Media)
In Search of Ancient New Zealand by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching (Penguin)
Wetlands of New Zealand: A Bitter-sweet Story by Janet Hunt (Random House)

Professor Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene and other popular science books) will announce the overall winner during a live video conference between New Zealand and the UK, at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival on Friday 15 May 2009.
See http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/ for more information, book descriptions and author biographies.