The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives international publicity which usually leads to a sales boost. When the prize was first created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014 it was widened to any English-language novel — a change that proved controversial. A seven person panel constituted by authors, librarians, literary agents, publishers, and booksellers is appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation.
The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and since it was established in 1988 has championed writers such as Stephen Hawking, Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gould and Bill Bryson. In 2015 The Guardian described the prize as "the most prestigious science book prize in Britain".
Tindal Street Press was a Birmingham-based independent publisher of contemporary literary fiction, with a particular focus on writers born, or living, in Birmingham and the West Midlands. According to its website, it was "a publicly funded organisation committed to providing a national and international platform for talented new writers from the English regions".
Viking Press is an American publishing company now owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975.
Pushkin Press is a British-based publishing house dedicated to publishing novels, essays, memoirs and children's books. The London-based company was founded in 1997 and is notable for publishing authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Antal Szerb, Paul Morand and Yasushi Inoue, as well as award-winning contemporary writers, including Andrés Neuman, Edith Pearlman, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Eka Kurniawan and Ryu Murakami.
Atul Gawande is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. In public health, he is executive director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit that works on reducing deaths in surgery globally. On June 20, 2018, Gawande was named the CEO of healthcare venture Haven, owned by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase and stepped down as CEO in May 2020, remaining as executive chairman whilst the organisation sought a new CEO.
Liverpool University Press (LUP), founded in 1899, is the third oldest university press in England after Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. It specialises in modern languages, literatures, history, and visual culture and currently publishes more than 150 books a year, as well as 34 academic journals. LUP's books are distributed in North America by Oxford University Press.
Canongate Books is an independent publishing firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Nicholas Royle is an English novelist, editor, publisher, literary reviewer and creative writing lecturer.
Oneworld Publications is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Novin Doostdar and Juliet Mabey originally to publish accessible non-fiction by experts and academics for the general market. Based in London, it later added a literary fiction list and both a children's list and an upmarket crime list, and now publishes across a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, current affairs, popular science, religion, philosophy, and psychology, as well as literary fiction, crime fiction and suspense, and children's titles. A large proportion of Oneworld fiction across all its lists is translated.
Mez Packer is an English novelist. She is the author of Among Thieves and The Game Is Altered and lectures at Coventry University.
Atlantic Books is an independent British publishing house, with its headquarters in Ormond House in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is perhaps best known for publishing Aravind Adiga's debut novel The White Tiger, which received the 40th Man Booker Prize in 2008, and for its long-standing relationship with the late Christopher Hitchens.
The Quarto Group is a global illustrated book publishing group founded in 1976. It is domiciled in the United States and listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Cormorant Books Inc is a Canadian book publishing company. The company's current publisher is Marc Côté.
The Rubery International Book Award is the largest cash award for books published by independent publishers and self published authors in Great Britain. The London Review of Books described it as "independent publishing's response to the Booktrust and the Orange Prize. The Alliance of Independent Authors describes the award as: 'holders of the respected Rubery Award [...] should be considered to have a quality endorsement.'
Favel Parrett is an Australian writer.
Freight Books was an independent publisher based in Glasgow. It published books for an English speaking readership, including award-winning literary fiction, poetry, illustrated non-fiction and humour. Freight Books was named Scotland's Publisher of the Year 2015 by the Saltire Society. Freight Books published the debut novel of Martin Cathcart Froden, the winner of the 2015 Dundee International Book Prize.
Sarah Quigley is a New Zealand-born writer.
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is a 2014 non-fiction book by American surgeon Atul Gawande. The book addresses end-of-life care, hospice care, and also contains Gawande's reflections and personal stories. He suggests that medical care should focus on well-being rather than survival. Being Mortal has won awards, appeared on lists of best books, and been featured in a documentary.
Fiona Shaw is a British novelist and academic. She has written a memoir as well as fiction for adults and children.
