BOOK AWARDS
Aventis Science Prize 2006
http://www.aventisprizes.com/home_welcome.htm
The 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 June 2006)
Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World by David Bodanis
ISBN 0316861820 published by Little, Brown
Shortlist (announced April 2006)
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World | David Bodanis | Little Brown | 0316861820 |
| Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive | Jared Diamond | Allen Lane | 0713992867 |
| Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and our Future in the Cosmos | Michio Kaku | Penguin | 0713997281 |
| Power Sex Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life | Nick Lane | Oxford University Press | 0192804812 |
| Empire of the Stars: Friendship Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes | Arthur I Miller | Little Brown | 0316725552 |
| The Truth about Hormones: What's Going on when we're Tetchy Spotty Fearful Tearful or Just Plain Awful | Vivienne Parry | Atlantic | 1843544288 |
