Image: British Academy Book Prize
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘How We Got to Where We Are’
Today (September 9), the annual autumn Contest Collision has begun in earnest, with multiple book and publishing awards in numerous countries releasing longlists, shortlists, with more to come on the same days—rather than check each others’ schedules and take advantage of the greater publicity of an uncontested release date.
We’ll start with the British Academy Book Award, one of the leading nonfiction international prize programs, distinguished by its declared intention to share information on the market impact that its winners may experience in book sales. Programs that make such commitments deserve first attention because their organizers are the ones willing to help the entire book-publishing industry assess what may be the actual value of these coveted “golden stickers.” The Booker Prizes do this. Another UK nonfiction program, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction does this. The British Academy Book Prize does this.
Needless to say, each awards program that commits to report on how its winners fare in the marketplace has an aura of confidence in the value of what it’s doing. That sense of security and pride is something we can hope may be found in other prize programs, as well. Sharing “the receipts,” as we say, for the kind of sales they can prompt goes a long way toward enhancing the value and power of awards programs which—for many consumers, of course—very easily run together.
The 2024 winner of the British Academy Book Prize was linguist Ross Perlin for his book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues from Grove Atlantic (and its United Kingdom arm, Grove Press UK).
The British Academy’s program always arrives with the cachet of its institution’s respect as the national academy for the humanities and social sciences, and—as journalists can tell you—this program is appreciated for the particularly professional support of Jane Acton in servicing the prize’s news to various media.
Now in its 13th year, the British Academy Book Prize carries a purse of £25,000 (US$33,809). Its stated focus is to pinpoint “writing grounded in high-quality research, works of nonfiction that will inspire readers to deepen their understanding of people, society, and cultures across time and place.”
The British Academy Prize 2025 Shortlist
Again this year, two of the books on the shortlist come from independent publishers: Bloomsbury Publishing and Icon Books.
Penguin Random House has two books—one each from its brands Allen Lane, and Vintage / Bodley Head.
Hachette UK’s Virago Press and HarperCollins’ William Collins each has one book on the list.
For our international readership: All listings below refer to UK editions.
| Author | Title | Publisher and/or Imprint/Brand |
| Sunil Amrith | The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years | Penguin Random House / Allen Lane |
| Lucy Ash | The Baton and the Cross: Russia’s Church From Pagans to Putin | Icon Books |
| William Dalrymple | The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Bronwen Everill | Afronomics: A History of Western Ignorance | HarperCollins / William Collins |
| Sophie Harmon | Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health | Virago Press |
| Graeme Lawson | Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story | Penguin Random House / Vintage / The Bodley Head |
Jurors for the 2025 Award
This year’s jury panel is chaired by Rebecca Earle, a fellow of the British Academy.
In a comment on today’s release of the shortlist, Earle is quoted saying, “From more than 230 entries, our panel identified six for our shortlist.
Rebecca Earle
“They cover topics from the West’s persistent misunderstanding of African economies, to the archaeology of our musical past. They consider the ‘golden road’ that spread Indian religious and mathematical practices across China, Southeast Asia and beyond, and the Russian Orthodox Church’s complicated relationship with the region’s political rulers over the past millennium. They demonstrate the central role of the environment in creating the modern world, and reveal the forces that condemn women around the globe to poor health, while offering practical actions readers can take.
“Together they offer an acute diagnosis of how we got to where we are.
“They also remind us of the importance of culture in our lives and in the lives of people in previous centuries. Each one of these well-written and well-researched books is a tribute to the importance of the humanities and social sciences in understanding our world.”
Joining Earle on the jury are:
- Shadreck Chirikure FBA, archaeological scientist, Edward Hall Professor of Archaeological Science, University of Oxford;
- Bridget Kendall, a former BBC foreign correspondent;
- Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad FBA, distinguished professor of comparative religion and philosophy at Lancaster University; and
- Journalist and broadcaster Ritula Shah.
A winner in the 2025 British Academy Book Prize is to be named on October 22.
Image: British Academy Book Prize
More from Publishing Perspectives on publishing and book award programs is here, and more on the British Academy Book Prize is here. More from us on the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize, the honor’s original iteration, is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s book market is here.
Wherever our international readers are in the world, they use our free daily email to be sure they don’t miss any news. Sign up now.