Read Smart Podcast Episode 7: the 2020 shortlist
Host BBC’s Razia Iqbal explores each of the 6 shortlisted titles and authors with 2020 judges, BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Martha Kearney , editor and novelist Simon Ings, and New York Times opinion editor Max Strasser. They go through each book individually and discuss how the titles reflect the very best in non-fiction.
This podcast was recorded and produced remotely. We’ll tune back in with the winner podcast – make sure to keep an ear out.
The Baillie Gifford Prize 2020 shortlist is:
- One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown (HarperCollins, 4th Estate)
- The Idea of the Brain: A History by Matthew Cobb (Profile Books)
- Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh (Penguin Random House, Allen Lane)
- Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women by Christina Lamb (Harper Collins, William Collins)
- Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Woman’s Life in Nineteenth-Century Japan by Amy Stanley (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
- The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury Publishing, Bloomsbury Circus)
Find out more about the shortlist here.
Next week we will continue to celebrate this year’s shortlist by launching a series of livestreams and mini-casts with the 2020 shortlisted authors and industry experts. Make sure to follow our social channels @BGPrize to stay up-to-date.
The winner of the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction will be announced in a virtual celebration, generously supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation, on Tuesday 24 November.
Read Smart Podcast is commissioned by The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and is generously supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Entale