£60,000 for winning authors

A re-examination of Nazism, and a study of the ocean, carried off two of the the UK's most prestigious book awards last night, as one of the most lucrative evenings in the awards calendar saw more than £60,000 in prize money shared among victorious authors. Michael Burleigh's "The Third Reich: A New History" (Macmillan) won the £30,000 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, with five runners-up getting £2,500 each.

Robert Kunzig's "Mapping the Deep The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science" (Sort of Books) won the £10,000 general prize of the Aventis Prizes for Science Books 2001. The winner of the junior prize, also worth £10,000, was the "DK Guide to Weather" by Michael Allaby (Dorling Kindersley).