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Memoirs from Julian Barnes and J G Ballard have made it to the longlist for this year’s BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.
Barnes’ Nothing to Be Frightened of (Cape) and Ballard’s Miracles of Life (HarperCollins) line up alongside 18 other titles, including Patrick French’s biography of V S Naipaul (Picador), Julie Kavanagh’s biography of Rudolf Nureyev (Fig Tree) and journalist Tim Butcher’s account of his journey down the Congo, Blood River (Chatto).
The 20-strong longlist, announced this week, was chosen from 131 entries, and Rosie Boycott, chair of judges, said: “The 20 books encompass everything that is exciting, innovative and brilliant about non-fiction in Britain today. Each one of them amply bears out the simple fact that ‘all the best stories are true’.”
The shortlist will be announced on 15th May, and the winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced at London’s South Bank Centre on 15th July. BBC Four will televise the awards ceremony on 20th July.
THE LONGLIST IN FULL:
Mad, Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi (Virago)
Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes (Cape)
Miracles of Life by J G Ballard (HarperCollins)
Blood River by Tim Butcher (Chatto)
Crow Country by Mark Cocker (Cape)
Finding Moonshine by Marcus Du Sautoy (Fourth Estate)
The Authorized Biography of V S Naipaul by Patrick French (Picador)
The Whisperers by Orlando Figes (Penguin)
Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh (Fig Tree)
Austerity Britain: 1945-1951 by David Kynaston (Bloomsbury)
Mrs Woolf and the Servants by Alison Light (Fig Tree)
Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes by Ferdinand Mount (Bloomsbury)
Watching the Door by Kevin Myers (Atlantic)
Confessions of an Eco Sinner by Fred Pearce (Eden Project)
Great Hatred, Little Room by Jonathan Powell (Bodley Head)
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb (Picador)
A Life of Picasso by John Richardson (Cape)
The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross (Fourth Estate)
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury)
The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf (Heinemann)