\u201cFormidable female novelists, ghastly literary men, a faith-shaken poet, eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, international terrorists\u201d are among the subjects covered by books on this year\u2019s Baillie Gifford shortlist, according to its judging chair, Robbie Millen.<\/p>\n
Literature is a theme of this year\u2019s list, which features the collected diaries of the Australian writer Helen Garner<\/a> alongside books about the Scottish novelist Muriel Spark and the poet Tennyson.<\/p>\n The shortlist for the UK\u2019s most prestigious nonfiction prize also includes books on the history of Islamic slavery and the emergence of radical extremism in the west. \u201cThe six books on this year\u2019s shortlist have real breadth in terms of subject matter and style,\u201d said Millen, who is literary editor of the Times and the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s international security correspondent, Jason Burke<\/a>, is shortlisted for The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s. The book \u201cmakes a counterintuitive argument\u201d, said the judges, \u201ctracing the decline of the left that led to the rise of Islamism\u201d, and is \u201ctremendously well-written\u201d.<\/p>\n Garner was shortlisted for How to End a Story, described<\/a> by the Guardian\u2019s reviewer Rachel Cooke as \u201cthe greatest, richest journals by a writer since Virginia Woolf\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n Richard Holmes, who was previously shortlisted in 1999 and 2009, this time makes the cut for The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief.<\/p>\n Frances Wilson, previously longlisted in 2016 and 2021, was chosen for Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, described as a \u201ccanny biography\u201d by Olivia Laing in her Guardian review<\/a>.<\/p>\n Asked about the literary bent to this year\u2019s shortlist at a press conference on Wednesday, Millen said that there was \u201cprobably less straight history being published than perhaps a few years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n Completing this year\u2019s shortlist is Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World by Justin Marozzi, and Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe by Adam Weymouth.<\/p>\n Asked about the lack of racial diversity on the shortlist \u2013 all six authors are white \u2013 Millen said that \u201cthe diversity [the judges] were most interested in was diversity of topic and style, and it just happened that that\u2019s the way the cards fell\u201d.<\/p>\n The winner of the prize will be announced on 4 November. While the winner will take home \u00a350,000, the other shortlisted authors will receive \u00a35,000 each.<\/p>\n The Baillie Gifford prize is sponsored by the investment management company Baillie Gifford. In recent years, the firm has faced criticism for its investments in businesses connected to fossil fuels and Israel. Protests last year led to the company\u2019s sponsorships of nine UK literary festivals coming to an end<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s winner, Richard Flanagan \u2013 who won the prize for his book Question 7 \u2013 said he would not accept the prize money<\/a> until Baillie Gifford shared a plan to reduce its investment in fossil fuel extraction and increase investments in renewables.<\/p>\n In Wednesday\u2019s conference, the prize director, Toby Mundy, said that Flanagan had had a \u201ccandid\u201d conversation with the fund manager, but the ultimate result was that Flanagan did not accept the money. It will instead be donated to a literacy charity.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The company\u2019s commitment to sponsor the prize expires this year, so the prize is \u201cdeep into conversations\u201d with Baillie Gifford about future sponsorship. There were \u201cvery positive indications\u201d that the company would continue to sponsor the award, said Mundy.<\/p>\n Twelve books had been longlisted<\/a> for this year\u2019s prize. The longlist also featured Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick; The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet; The Last Days of Budapest by Adam LeBor; John & Paul by Ian Leslie; Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li; and Between the Waves by Tom McTague.<\/p>\n Joining Millen on this year\u2019s judging panel are the historian and author Pratinav Anil; the journalist and broadcaster Inaya Folarin Iman; the cultural historian, biographer and novelist, and previous winner of the prize, Lucy Hughes-Hallett; the deputy culture editor of the Economist, Rachel Lloyd; and the author and biographer Peter Parker.<\/p>\n Judges made their selections from 350 books published between 1 November 2024 and 31 October 2025.<\/p>\n Recent winners of the prize include John Vaillant<\/a>, Katherine Rundell<\/a>, Patrick Radden Keefe<\/a> and Craig Brown<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFormidable female novelists, ghastly literary men, a faith-shaken poet, eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, international terrorists\u201d are among the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-56224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}