The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
William McGuire Bryson is an American-British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has been a resident of Britain for most of his adult life, returning to the U.S. between 1995 and 2003, and holds dual American and British citizenship. He served as the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011.
If on a winter's night a traveler is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler. Each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section of each chapter is in second person, and describes the process the reader goes through to attempt to read the next chapter of the book they are reading. The second half is the first part of a new book that the reader ("you") finds. The second half is always about something different from the previous ones. The book was published in an English translation by William Weaver in 1981.
The Church in Wales is an Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament.
Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an English conservative author, broadcaster, journalist, and commentator. He writes for The Mail on Sunday and was a foreign correspondent reporting from both Moscow and Washington, D.C. Peter Hitchens has contributed to The Spectator, The American Conservative, The Guardian, First Things, Prospect, and the New Statesman. His books include The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God, The War We Never Fought and The Phoney Victory.
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".
Andrea Levy was an English author best known for the novels Small Island (2004) and The Long Song (2010). She was born in London to Jamaican parents, and her work explores topics related to British Jamaicans and how they negotiate racial, cultural and national identities.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by American-British author Bill Bryson is a popular science book that explains some areas of science, using easily accessible language that appeals more to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject. It was one of the bestselling popular science books of 2005 in the United Kingdom, selling over 300,000 copies.
Robert Macfarlane is a British writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam is a 2005 non-fiction book written by Iranian-American Muslim scholar Reza Aslan. The book describes the history of Islam and argues for a liberal interpretation of the religion. It blames Western imperialism and self-serving misinterpretations of Islamic law by past scholars for the current controversies within Islam, challenging the "clash of civilizations" thesis.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a 2006 memoir by best-selling travel writer Bill Bryson. The book delves into Bryson's past, telling of his youth growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, during the 1950s and early 1960s. It also reveals the backstory between himself and Stephen Katz, who appeared in A Walk in the Woods and Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe. Bryson also describes and comments on American life in the 1950s. The title of the book comes from an imaginary alter-ego Bryson invented for himself in his childhood, who has the ability to vaporise people.
Down Under is the British title of a 2000 travelogue book about Australia written by best-selling travel writer Bill Bryson. In the United States and Canada it was published titled In a Sunburned Country, a title taken from the famous Australian poem, "My Country". It was also published as part of Walk About, which included Down Under and another of Bryson's books, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, in one volume.
Bill Bryson's African Diary is a 2002 book by bestselling travel writer Bill Bryson. The book details a trip Bryson took to Kenya in 2002. Bryson describes his experiences there and observations about Kenyan culture, geography, and politics, as well as his visits to poverty-fighting projects run by CARE International, to which he donated all royalties for the book.
The Graveyard Book is a young adult novel written by the English author Neil Gaiman, simultaneously published in Britain and America in 2008. The Graveyard Book traces the story of the boy Nobody "Bod" Owens, who is adopted and reared by the supernatural occupants of a graveyard after his family is brutally murdered.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life is a history of domestic life written by Bill Bryson. It was published in May 2010. The book covers topics of the commerce, architecture, technology and geography that have shaped homes into what they are today, told through a series of "tours" through Bryson's Norfolk rectory that quickly digress into the history of each particular room.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a book by Yuval Noah Harari, based on a series of lectures he taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was first published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011, and in English in 2014. The book focuses on Homo sapiens, and surveys the history of humankind, starting from the Stone Age and going up to the 21st century. The account is situated within a framework that intersects the natural sciences with the social sciences.
The Story of Music is a work of nonfiction by English composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall, first published in 2013 by Chatto & Windus, which covers the history of largely Western classical music from pre-history to 2012. The book is associated with the 2013 BBC2 documentary series Howard Goodall's Story of Music. The book's reception was broadly positive, with the main criticism being of its treatment of Schoenberg and the atonal movement.
Fire & Blood is a fantasy book by American writer George R. R. Martin and illustrated by Doug Wheatley. It tells the history of House Targaryen, the dynasty that ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros in the backstory of his series A Song of Ice and Fire. Although originally planned for publication after the completion of the series, Martin revealed his intent to publish the history in two volumes as the material had grown too large. The first volume was released on November 20, 2018.
Walking Home: Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way is a 2012 non-fiction book by the Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage. It chronicles his attempt to walk the long-distance trail the opposite way to that usually taken, from north to south. Along the way, he takes no money, stays with strangers, and gives poetry readings to pay his expenses. The book is illustrated with Armitage's photographs taken along the route. Two of his poems are included in the chapters about the places the poems describe.
