New science book prize for writers and publishers

Teacher, blogger, palaeontologist, and science historian, these are some of the day jobs held by the writers whose books were shortlisted in the inaugural Royal Society of NZ (RSNZ) Science Book Prize announced recently.

The judges, Prof. Jean Fleming, Prof. Harry Ricketts and Prof. Brian Boyd, said “The quality and diversity of the books entered for the prize was wonderful to see.”

The RSNZ, our national science academy, established the prize for popular science books in December to celebrate the very best in this genre. The prize is $10,000 for the author(s) and $2,500 for the publisher.

The five shortlisted titles for the 2009 RSNZ Science Book Prize are:

• The Awa Book of New Zealand Science edited by Rebecca Priestley (Awa Press).

• Falling for Science by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press).

• Hot Topic: Climate Change and the Future of New Zealand by Gareth Renowden (AUT Media).

• In Search of Ancient New Zealand by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching (Penguin).

• Wetlands of New Zealand: A Bitter-sweet Story by Janet Hunt (Random House).

Prof. Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene and other popular science books) will announce the overall winner during a live video conference between NZ and the UK, at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival on Friday 15th May 2009.