The Wellcome Book Prize

The Wellcome Book Prize (previously known as the Wellcome Trust Book Prize) is an annual award, open to new works of fiction or nonfiction. To be eligible for entry, a book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. This can cover many genres of writing – including crime, romance, popular science, sci fi and history.

The shortlist for the Wellcome Book Prize 2014 was announced earlier this morning at a breakfast event held at the Wellcome Trust, London.

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Wounded: From Battlefield to Blighty by Emily Mayhew
Creation: The Origin of Life by Adam Rutherford
Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
Far From the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of Love by Andrew Solomon
Inconvenient People by Sarah Wise

The list spans genres and brings together six thrillingly diverse explorations of medicine and health, including a novel about botany and exploration; the story of an injured World War I soldier; a survey of parenting and human difference; a scientific account of the story of life; a study of hallucinations; and a history of lunacy and asylums in Victorian times.

Andrew Motion said: “The six books on our shortlist take readers’ curiosity about the human condition in breathtakingly different directions – from frightening tales of ‘inconvenient’ Victorians to the strange world of hallucinations; from the return journeys of Great War battlefield casualties to an important new concept of ‘horizontal families’; and from a beautiful story of a 19th century explorer to a fresh take on the origins of life.”

This year’s prize will be presented at a ceremony at Wellcome Collection on the 29th April.

I plan to read the shortlist in its entirety, as this is one of the literary prizes that interests me the most.

I have read none of those, but what a great list of wonderful-sounding books!

Far From the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of Love by Andrew Solomon is the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize.

http://www.wellcomebookprize.org/Past-prizes/2014/Books/WTP055754.htm

I've heard nothing but good things about Far from the Tree, but its length is daunting.

Same here, Rebecca; it's nearly 1000 pages long! I have it on my Kindle, and I plan to read it when I'm on holiday in Europe next month.

The shortlist for the Wellcome Book Prize, the UK literary award that celebrates new works that have a "central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness", was released last week:

The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being by Alice Roberts
My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

The winner of this year's prize will be announced in London on April 29th. Included in this hyperlink in the first paragraph of this post is a short video by the chair of judges, Bill Bryson, who gives a brief description of each shortlisted book. I've gotten away from this award the past couple of years, so I intend to read all six books by the end of the year.

The Guardian: Wellcome book prize shortlist mixes grief and joy

The Iceberg by Marion Coutts is the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize.

The shortlist for the 2016 Wellcome Book Prize, the UK based prize for the best books that have a "central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness", was announced earlier this afternoon:

Playthings by Alex Pheby:

Playthings, Alex Pheby’s second novel, provides a compelling and original take on one of the most influential psychological case studies in early-20th-century history: the mind of Daniel Paul Schreber.

Daniel Paul Schreber was a judge who lived in Dresden – and in later life wrote Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, an autobiographical account of his battle with mental illness. This extraordinary book, based on Schreber’s first two confinements in an asylum, became a foundation stone in the psychological history of the 20th century.

What Schreber was not able to write about was the final part of his story: his third episode of delusion and paranoia and subsequent incarceration, from which he did not return. Playthings provides this dark final chapter. Along the way, it plunges deep not just into the mind of Schreber, but also into the society in which he struggled to live – because his rigid upbringing, and subsequent breakdowns, is the story not just of one man, but of Germany as whole.

It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan:

Up to a third of people who go to see their GP have symptoms that are medically unexplained; in many of these cases an emotional cause is suspected. And yet, when it comes to a diagnosis, ‘It’s all in your head’ is the very last thing we want to hear, and the last thing doctors want to say.

In It’s All in Your Head consultant neurologist Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan takes us on a journey through the world of psychosomatic illness. We meet patients like Pauline, who has been ill all her adult life, Camilla, the lawyer with the perfect life – except for her unexplained seizures – Yvonne, who was blinded at work by cleaning spray, and Rachel, a once-promising dancer now stuck in the purgatory of ME.

The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink:

In the summer of 1990, Cathy’s brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out. It was two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school. Sitting by his unconscious body in hospital, holding his hand and watching his heartbeat on the monitors, Cathy and her parents willed him to survive. They did not know then that there are many and various fates worse than death.

This is the story of what happened to Cathy and her brother, and the unimaginable decision that she and her parents had to make eight years after the night that changed everything. It’s a story for anyone who has ever watched someone suffer, or lost someone they loved, or lived through a painful time that left them forever changed. Told with boundless warmth and affection, The Last Act of Love is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family’s survival and the price we pay for love.

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman:

What is autism: a devastating developmental condition, a lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more – and the future of our society depends on our understanding it.

Following on from his groundbreaking article ‘The geek syndrome’, ‘Wired’ reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years.

Going back to the earliest autism research and chronicling the brave and lonely journey of autistic people and their families through the decades, Silberman provides long-sought solutions to the autism puzzle while casting light on the growing movement of ‘neurodiversity’ and mapping out a path towards a more humane world for people with learning differences.

Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss:

Set in the 1880s, Signs for Lost Children carries on from Bodies of Light, which was shortlisted in 2015, following a newly married couple who are separated and change in each other’s absence.

Protagonist Ally is now a prizewinning doctor, one of the pioneering group who, against fierce opposition, fought to open up medicine to women. Only weeks into their marriage, she and her husband Tom embark on a six-month period of separation. Tom goes to Japan to build lighthouses, while Ally stays and works at the Truro asylum. As Ally plunges into the politics of madness, Tom navigates the social nuances of late-19th-century Japan.

With her unique blend of emotional insight and intellectual profundity, Sarah Moss builds a novel in two parts, painting two distinct but conjoined portraits of loneliness and determination. Signs for Lost Children is a powerful enquiry into the workings of the human mind and heart.

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot:

Amy was shaped by the cycle of the seasons, birth and death on the farm, and her father’s mental illness, which were as much a part of her childhood as the wild, carefree existence on Orkney. But as she grew up, she longed to leave this remote life. She moved to London and found herself in a hedonistic cycle. Unable to control her drinking, alcohol gradually took over. Now 30, she finds herself washed up back home on Orkney, standing unstable at the cliff edge, trying to come to terms with what happened to her in London.

The Outrun is a beautiful, inspiring book about living on the edge, about the pull between island and city, and about the ability of the sea, the land, the wind and the moon to restore life and renew hope.

The winner of the Wellcome Book Prize will be announced on April 25th.

I own Neurotribes, which I plan to read for Autism Awareness Month in April, and I was already planning to buy Signs for Lost Children, as I loved Bodies of Light. The other four books sound fascinating, so I'll buy all of them while I'm in London starting on Wednesday, and start reading one of them this week.

It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan is the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize.

The longlist for this year's Wellcome Book Prize, the British literary award that honors the best books about medicine, illness and health regardless of genre, was announced earlier today:

How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (alternate title: The Heart: A Novel)
The Golden Age by Joan London
Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes by Adam Rutherford
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong

I've already read two of the longlisted books, When Breath Becomes Air and Mend the Living, and I had intended to read The Tidal Zone (which I already own), The Gene and Miss Jane. At first glance this longlist looks outstanding, and I'll try to read all 10 remaining books by the end of the year, starting with Miss Jane, which I just purchased as an Amazon Kindle e-book.

The Guardian: Wellcome book prize reveals longlist for 2017 award

The full 2017 Wellcome book prize shortlist is:

How to Survive a Plague by David France (USA) Picador, Pan Macmillan

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (USA), The Bodley Head, Penguin Random House

Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (France) and translated by Jessica Moore, MacLehose Press

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss (UK), Granta Books

The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee (USA), The Bodley Head, Penguin Random House

I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong (UK), The Bodley Head, Penguin Random House

The winner of the 2017 award will announced on 24 April.

The winner of the Wellcome Book Prize for 2017 has been announced, celebrating exceptional works of fiction and non-fiction that have breached the worlds of health and medicine.

It's a fairly historic win for the award, with Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerengal, translated by Jessica Moore, marking the first French author and first novel in translation to win the £30,000 prize.

Mend the Living was published as The Heart: A Novel in the US last year. I read it, as it was chosen for last year's Man Booker International Prize longlist, and I greatly enjoyed it.

I attended the Wellcome Book Prize Brunch in Notting Hill, London this past Sunday, and Maylis de Kerangal gave an enlightening 15 minute talk about her novel and the impetus for writing it.

The longlist for this year's Wellcome Book Prize, my favorite literary award, which celebrates "the many ways in which literature can illuminate the breadth and depth of our relationship with health, medicine and illness," was announced earlier today:



Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀: Sickle-Cell Disease, Nigeria, Fiction

This Nigerian debut is the heart-breaking tale of what wanting a child can do to a person, a marriage and a family; a powerful and vivid story of what it means to love not wisely but too well.

Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything – arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, appeals to God. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair.

Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, ‘Stay With Me’ sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about our desperate attempts to save ourselves and those we love from heartbreak.

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris: Surgical Medical History, Non-Fiction, Victorian History

The spellbinding story of a visionary British surgeon who changed medicine for ever. In ‘The Butchering Art’, historian Lindsey Fitzharris recreates a critical turning-point in the history of medicine, when Joseph Lister transformed surgery from a brutal, harrowing practice to the safe, vaunted profession we know today.

Victorian operating theatres were known as gateways of death, Fitzharris reminds us, since half of those who underwent surgery didn’t survive the experience. This was an era when a broken leg could lead to amputation, and surgeons were still known to ransack cemeteries to find cadavers. And in squalid, overcrowded hospitals, doctors remained baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high.

At a time when surgery couldn’t have been more dangerous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: Joseph Lister, a young Quaker surgeon. By making the audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection – and could be treated with antiseptics – he changed the history of medicine for ever. With a novelist’s eye for detail, Fitzharris brilliantly conjures up the grisly world of Victorian surgery, revealing how one of Britain’s greatest medical minds finally brought centuries of savagery, sawing and gangrene to an end.

In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s by Joseph Jebelli: Disease and Disorders, Medical Memoir, Non-Fiction

A fascinating and very human story of the Alzheimer’s epidemic that affects millions of people around the world – and the race against the clock to find a cure.

When Joseph Jebelli was 12, his beloved grandfather, Abbas, began to act very strangely. Before long, Abbas didn’t recognise his family any more.

Now a neuroscientist, Dr Jebelli has dedicated his career to understanding Alzheimer’s disease, which affects 850,000 people in the UK and many millions more worldwide. In this, his first book, Jebelli explores the past, present and future of Alzheimer’s disease, starting from the very beginning – the first recorded case more than 100 years ago – right up to the cutting-edge research being done today. It is a story as good as any detective novel, taking us to 19th-century Germany and postwar England; to the jungles of Papua New Guinea and the technological proving grounds of Japan; to America, India, China, Iceland, Sweden and Colombia; and to the cloud-capped spires of the most elite academic institutions. Its heroes are expert scientists from around the world – but also the incredibly brave patients and families who have changed the way scientists think about Alzheimer’s, unveiling a deadly disease that took us centuries to track down, and above all, reminding everyone never to take memory – our most prized possession – for granted.

Plot 29: A Memoir by Allan Jenkins: Gardening, Autobiography, Family History

A beautifully written, haunting memoir, ‘Plot 29’ is a mystery story and a meditation on nature and nurture. It’s also a celebration of the joy to be found in sharing food and flowers with people you love.

As young boys in 1960s Plymouth, Allan Jenkins and his brother, Christopher, were rescued from their care home and fostered by an elderly couple. There, the brothers started to grow flowers in their riverside cottage. They found a new life with their new mum and dad.

As Allan grew older, his foster parents were never quite able to provide the family he and his brother needed, but the solace he found in tending a small London allotment echoed the childhood moments when he grew nasturtiums from seed.

Over the course of a year, Allan digs deeper into his past, seeking to learn more about his absent parents. Examining the truths and untruths that he’d been told, he discovers the secrets to why the two boys were in care. What emerges is a vivid portrait of the violence and neglect that lay at the heart of his family.

The White Book by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith: Living, Grief, Death

A stunning meditation on the colour white – about light, about death and about ritual.

From the author of ‘The Vegetarian’ and ‘Human Acts’ comes a book like no other. ‘The White Book’ is a meditation on colour, beginning with a list of white things. It is a book about mourning, rebirth and the tenacity of the human spirit. It is a stunning investigation of the fragility, beauty and strangeness of life.

With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix: Palliative Medicine, End of Life, Memoir

In this unprecedented book, palliative medicine pioneer Dr Kathryn Mannix explores the biggest taboo in our society and the only certainty we all share: death. A tender and insightful book that will revolutionise the way we discuss and approach the end-of-life process.

Told through beautifully crafted stories taken from three decades of clinical practice, this book answers the most intimate questions about the process of dying with touching honesty and humanity. Mannix makes a compelling case for the therapeutic power of approaching death not with trepidation but with openness, clarity and understanding.

‘With the End in Mind’ is a book for us all: the grieving, the ill and the healthy. Open these pages and you will find stories about people who are like you, and like people you know and love. You will meet Holly, who danced her last day away; Eric, the retired head teacher who, even with motor neurone disease, gets things done; loving, tender-hearted Nelly and Joe, each living a lonely lie to save their beloved from distress; and Sylvie, 19, dying of leukaemia, sewing a cushion for her mum to hug by the fire after she has died.

These are just four of the book’s 30-odd stories of normal humans, dying normal human deaths. They show how the dying embrace living not because they are unusual or brave, but because that’s what humans do. By turns touching, tragic, at times funny and always wise, they offer us illumination, models for action, and hope. Read this book and you’ll be better prepared for life as well as death.

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty: General Fiction, Literary Fiction

An intense exploration of love and uncertainty when a long-married couple take a midwinter break in Amsterdam.

A retired couple, Gerry and Stella Gilmore, take a holiday – to refresh the senses, to see the sights and to generally take stock of what remains of their lives. But amongst the wintry streets and icy canals we see their relationship fracturing beneath the surface. And when memories re-emerge of a troubled time in their native Ireland, things begin to fall apart. As their midwinter break comes to an end, we understand how far apart they are – and can only watch as they struggle to save themselves.

To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O'Connell: Non-Fiction, Transhumanism, Medical Ethics

An engaging and often astounding exploration of transhumanism, the philosophical and technological movement that is working on an update of the human machine.

Transhumanism is a movement whose aim is to use technology to fundamentally change the human condition, to improve our bodies and minds to the point where we become something other, and better, than the animals we are. It’s a philosophy that, depending on how you look at it, can seem hopeful, or terrifying, or absurd. In ‘To Be a Machine’, Mark O’Connell presents us with the first full-length exploration of transhumanism: its philosophical and scientific roots, its key players and possible futures. From charismatic techies seeking to enhance the body to immortalists who believe in the possibility of ‘solving’ death; from computer programmers quietly redesigning the world to vast competitive robotics conventions; ‘To Be a Machine’ is an Adventure in Wonderland for our time.

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell: Memoir, Survival, Motherhood

A Sunday Times no 1. bestseller, this is a memoir with a difference – the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman’s life in near-death experiences. Insightful, inspirational, intelligent, it’s a book to be read at a sitting, a story you finish newly conscious of life’s fragility, determined to make every heartbeat count.

A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital. Shocking, electric, unforgettable, Costa Novel Award winner Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir is a book to make you question yourself. What would you do if your life was in danger, and what would you stand to lose?

Mayhem: A Memoir by Sigrid Rausing: Addiction, Family, Memoir

A searing memoir about the impact of addiction on a family.

In the summer of 2012 a woman named Eva was found dead from a drug overdose in a London townhouse. Now, writing with singular clarity and restraint, writer and publisher Sigrid Rausing tries to make sense of what happened.

‘Mayhem’ is a deeply personal memoir, and an attempt to understand the deadly and elusive syndrome of addiction. Rausing’s anthropological training informs the writing – the book is as sceptical and incisive as it is lyrical. She raises questions, and resists easy answers, drawing us into a deceptively simple structure. Addiction is a family disease, and Rausing gradually reveals its subtle dysfunctions, until we come to understand the text, the quest itself, as a sign of the author’s almost invisible entanglement in the disease. The mystery that unravels is that of Rausing’s own journey – the story of addiction from the point of view of a family member. It is a story that almost by definition has no resolution – the causation and course of the disease are rarely discovered. Rausing ends her book with a meditation on an art show in New York, entitled ‘Unfinished’ – an apt end to a book that is both a work of art and an investigation.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky: Human Behaviour, Evolutionary Science/Psychology, Non-Fiction

A groundbreaking synthesis of the entire science of human behaviour by “one of the best scientist-writers of our time” (Oliver Sacks).

Why do we do what we do? ‘Behave’ is at once a dazzling tour and a majestic synthesis of the whole science of human behaviour. Brought to life through simple language, engaging stories and irreverent wit, it offers the fullest picture yet of the origins of tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, war and peace.

Robert Sapolsky’s ingenious method is to move backwards in time from the moment at which a behaviour occurs, layer by layer through the myriad influences that led to it.

We begin with the split-second reactions of the brain and nervous system…

Then we consider our response to sight, sound and smell in the minutes and seconds beforehand…

Next he explains the interactions of hormones, which prime our behaviour in the preceding hours and days…

He proceeds through the experiences of adolescence, childhood and fetal development that shape us over our lifespans…

And continues over centuries and millennia through the profound influences of genetic inheritance, cultural context and ultimately the evolutionary origins of our species.

Throughout, Sapolsky considers the most important question: what causes acts of aggression or compassion? What inspires us to terrible deeds and what might help foster our best behaviour?

Wise, humane, often very funny, ‘Behave’ is a towering achievement, powerfully humanising.

The Vaccine Race: How Scientists Used Human Cells to Combat Killer Viruses by Meredith Wadman: Medical Ethics, Immunology, Popular Science

The epic and controversial story of the major scientific breakthrough that led to the creation of some of the world’s most important vaccines.

Until the late 1960s, tens of thousands of children suffered crippling birth defects if their mothers had been exposed to rubella, popularly known as German measles, while pregnant. There was no vaccine and little understanding of how the disease devastated fetuses. In June 1962, a young biologist in Philadelphia produced the first safe, clean cells that made possible the mass production of vaccines against many common childhood diseases. Two years later, in the midst of a German measles epidemic, his colleague developed the vaccine that would go on to effectively wipe out rubella in many countries.

This vaccine and others made with those cells have since protected hundreds of millions of people worldwide, the vast majority of them preschool children. Meredith Wadman’s account of this great leap forward in medicine is a fascinating and revelatory read.

The shortlist for this year's Wellcome Book Prize will be announced on March 20, and the prize will be awarded on April 30.

This is such an interesting book prize and thank you Darryl for the wonderful review of books for the 2018 prize. I see To be a Machine was the winner!

The Wellcome Book Prize 2019 Shortlist

1.'Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man' by Thomas Page McBee
2.'Heart: A History' by Sandeep Jauhar
3.'Mind On Fire' by Arnold Thomas Fanning
4.'Murmur' by Will Eaves
5.'My Year Of Rest & Relaxation' by Ottessa Moshfegh
6.'The Trauma Cleaner' by Sarah Krasnostein

Murmur by Will Eaves is the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize.

https://wellcomebookprize.org/

Wellcome Collection will be pausing to allow the team to reflect and to plan for the future of the prize.

We are extremely proud of the success of the Wellcome Book Prize, which celebrates exceptional works of literature that illuminate the many ways that health, medicine and illness touch our lives.