Image: Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Mind-Quickening Variety’
Among major book and publishing awards based in the United Kingdom, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction is one of the very few to publish information on how its honored books fare in the marketplace.
Our initial coverage of this commitment by the program’s executive director Toby Mundy, the London-based CEO of Aevitas Creative Management Limited, is here for your review, and information upcoming on how various elements of the competition’s influence are tracked, will be helpful in assessing the impact of the many awards programs out there today, especially in the British market.
As the competition season heats up and many awards programs announce their various lists—especially in prize-saturated England—Robbie Millen, chair of the 2025 jury, says that variety is “the common theme of this longlist.
“All the jurors were impressed, delighted and relieved by the mind-quickening variety of the books that we read in terms of style, character, and subject matter,” he says.
“It’s been a terrific reading experience. We’ve been given an insight into the original, offbeat mind of great novelists, seen how poets responded to the faith-quaking challenge of science, and through the experiences of one hotel seen a country in a new light. We’ve followed a writer into the abyss of personal tragedy and soared to the heights of creativity with pop’s greatest bromance. Now we also know how far a wolf will lope to find a mate – and, shudder, how eunuchs are made.”
Toby Mundy
Announcing its 2025 12-title longlist this morning, in London (at 7 p.m. ET in New York), the Baillie Gifford program recognizes the work of eight publishers. Four of the longlisted titles are published by Penguin Random House imprints and divisions; others honor work produced by HarperCollins’ William Collins and Fourth Estate; Bloomsbury Publishing’s Apollo and Bloomsbury Circus; Faber & Faber; Orion’s Weidenfeld and Nicolson; and Pan Macmillan’s Picador.
Named for its nine-year sponsor, the Edinburgh-based independent investment partnership Baillie Gifford Prize this year anticipates naming a shortlist on October 2 and a winner on November 4.
This year’s longlisted names familiar to those who follow the prize regularly will include the American writer Barbara Demick, the winner of the 2010 award for her Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China’s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins from Granta. In addition, the new list’s Frances Wilson has been longlisted twice in the past, while Richard Holmes has been shortlisted twice.
The Baillie Gifford Prize 2025 Longlist
For our internationalist readership, a note that the publishers listed here are the UK publishers of the Baillie Gifford’s longlisted titles. In cases of books originally published in other markets before being released in the United Kingdom, you may have encountered a title as another publisher’s release.
| Author, Translator (Nationality) | Title | Publisher and/or Imprint |
| Jason Burke (British) | The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s |
Penguin Random House / Vintage / The Bodley Head |
| Barbara Demick (American) | Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China’s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins | Granta |
| Lyse Doucet (Canadian) | The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan | Penguin Random House / Hutchinson Heinemann / Cornerstone |
| Helen Garner (Australian) | How to End a Story: Collected Diaries | Orion Publishing Group / Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
| Richard Holmes (British) | The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief | HarperCollins / William Collins |
| Adam LeBor (British) | The Last Days of Budapest: Spies, Nazis, Rescuers and Resistance, 1940-1945 | Bloomsbury Publishing / Apollo |
| Ian Leslie (British) | John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs | Faber & Faber |
| Yiyun Li (Chinese-born American) | Things in Nature Merely Grow | HarperCollins / Fourth Estate |
| Justin Marozzi (British) | Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World | Penguin Random House / Allen Lane |
| Tom McTague (British) | Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 | Pan Macmillan / Picador |
| Adam Weymouth (British) | Lone Wolf: Walking the Fault Lines of Europe | Penguin Random House / Hutchinson Heinemann / Cornerstone |
| Frances Wilson (British) | Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark | Bloomsbury Publishing / Bloomsbury Circus |
The Initial Pool Topped 350 Books
In addition to chair Robbie Millen, the literary editor of The Times and Sunday Times, the 2025 jury panel comprises:
- Historian Pratinav Anil;
- Journalist Inaya Folarin Iman;
- Cultural historian, biographer and novelist Lucy Hughes-Hallett, a previous winner of the Baillie Gifford;
- The Economist‘s deputy culture editor Rachel Lloyd; and
- Author and biographer Peter Parker.
The jury’s selection of 12 longlistees was made from a starting field of more than 350 books published between November 1 and (upcoming) October 31. That number appears to put the submission figure slightly ahead of last year’s.
The 2024 winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction was Question 7 from Penguin Random House.
The winner of the award receives a purse of £50,000 (US$67,185).
More from Publishing Perspectives on the international publishing business’ myriad book and industry awards is here, more on the United Kingdom’s market is here, more on the Baillie Gifford Prize is here, and more on nonfiction is here.
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