BOOK AWARDS
Royal Society Prize for Science Books
http://www.aventisprizes.com/home_welcome.htm
The Royal Society Prize for Science Books (formerly Aventis Prizes for Science Books) are an annual book prize, which celebrate the very best in popular science writing for adults and children; they have become become one of the UK’s most prestigious non-fiction literary prizes. The Prizes are owned by the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, who manged the Prizes with the generous support of the Aventis Foundation.
There are two categories: The Junior Prize, which is given to the best book written for under-14s, and the General Prize, for the best book written for a more general readership. Each prize is worth £10,000 to the winning author and £1,000 to each of the shortlisted authors.
The General Prize is chosen by a panel of five judges who select approximately six shortlisted books and subsequently a winner. For the Junior Prize, initially a panel of five adult judges chooses the shortlist of six books. The task of picking the winner is then handed over to the people who should know best — young people aged up to fourteen.
Winner (announced May 2008)
Shortlist (announced April 2008)
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| A Life Decoded | J.Craig Ventner | Allen Lane | 9780713997248 |
| Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise | Steve Jones | Little Brown | 9780316729383 |
| Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious | Gerd Gigerenzer | Allen Lane | 9780713997514 |
| Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet | Mark Lynas | Fourth Estate | 9780007209040 |
| Sun Kings | Stuart Clark | Princeton University | 9780691126609 |
| Why Beauty is Truth | Ian Stewart | Basic Books | 9780465082360 |
