Duff Cooper Prize

Calling all UK publishers of great non-fiction 📚. Tell our judges about the best books you're bringing out this year. Nominations for the 70th #duffcooperprize 🎉 now open until 1 June 2025. Details here: duffcooperprize.org/about/how-to...

What Makes a Great Non-fiction Book?  And Just Why it Matters. Celebrate with a Free Glass of Champagne | Oxford Literary Festival Artemis Cooper, Sue Prideaux and Cal Revely-Calder talks to Miles Young - What Makes a Great Non-fiction Book?  And Just Why it Matters. Celebrate with a Free Glass of Champagne

Join Sue Prideaux, along with The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize judges Artemis Cooper & Miles Young, over a glass of fizz at @newcollegeoxf.bsky.social as part of the Oxford Literary Festival.
4th April, book now:
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...

‘The Polynesians loved him’: the astonishing revelations that cast Paul Gauguin in a new light He has been tarred as a French colonialist who spread syphilis to underage girls in the South Seas. But, writes the author of an acclaimed new book, fresh discoveries challenge this view of the artist...

“‘The Polynesians loved him’: the astonishing revelations that cast Paul Gauguin in a new light”
Sue Prideaux discusses her Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize-winning biography Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin in today’s @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

With us in the Cotswolds in May Sue Prideaux winner 2025 @duffcooperprize.bsky.social for Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin, published by @faberbooks.bsky.social
Buy book @borzoibookshop.bsky.social
Book talk online
www.campdenmayfestivals.co.uk/literature/e...

Both Sue Prideaux WILD THING winner @duffcooperprize.bsky.social and (see @fivebooks.com below) Minoo Dinshaw prize judge & author of FRIENDS IN YOUTH #history The English Civil War will be with us in May
Book tickets on line
www.campdenmayfestivals.co.uk/literature/e...

The TLS Podcast: March 7, 2025 Toby Lichtig chats to Sam Leith about formative literature at Jewish Book Week and David Horspool meets Sue Prideaux, winner of this year’s Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize

‘He’s showing the two realities simultaneously, the mental reality and the physical reality and that’s just extraordinary.’
Listen to The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025 winner Sue Prideaux interviewed by judge David Horspool on the @thetls.bsky.social podcast.
www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize It's a nonfiction book prize that values "style, rigour, argument, meatiness, readability, freshness, oddity and individuality," says Minoo Dinshaw, author of Friends in Youth and one of this year's…

NEWS: Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux, a biography of French painter Paul Gauguin, wins the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. Here's our interview with prize judge Minoo Dinshaw about this year's fab shortlist:

Today's top story:

Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux (Faber) has won the Duff Cooper Prize

buff.ly/lu5Ibfi (£)

Many congratulations to Sue Prideaux for winning the @duffcooperprize.bsky.social for her biography of Paul Gauguin.

And many thanks to Artemis Cooper and the other judges for the honour of being shortlisted.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying it!

Reading this at the moment and loving it. Well deserved.

What Makes a Great Non-fiction Book?  And Just Why it Matters | Oxford Literary Festival Artemis Cooper and Cal Revely-Calder talks to Miles Young - What Makes a Great Non-fiction Book?  And Just Why it Matters

Hear winner Sue Prideaux and Artemis Cooper, chair of The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, together at the Oxford Literary Festival at 12 noon on 4th April 2025.
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...

Thank you to all our judges, Artemis Cooper (chair); Miles Young, warden of New College, Oxford (@newcollegeoxf.bsky.social); Susan Brigden, David Horspool and Minoo Dinshaw.

Artemis Cooper, chair of judges, said: ‘Sue Prideaux’s Wild Thing brings to light a complex picture, of a man who struggled all his life to evoke his experience of being alive. She dazzles in the way she writes about his art and brings him alive in the context of his time.’

Winner of The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, Sue Prideaux, holds her winning book Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin

Congratulations to Sue Prideaux winner of The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025 for Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin, published by @faberbooks.bsky.social. 🍾

The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize It's a nonfiction book prize that values "style, rigour, argument, meatiness, readability, freshness, oddity and individuality," says Minoo Dinshaw, author of Friends in Youth and one of this year's…

Which was the best nonfiction/history book of 2024? The judges of the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize (@duffcooperprize.bsky.social) will announce their winner tonight:

The six books shortlisted for The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025: Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy Mark Gilbert (Allen Lane) Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World Kathryn Hughes (Fourth Estate) The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Fourth Estate) Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations 1400-1750 Noel Malcolm (OUP) Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin Sue Prideaux (Faber) Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War between Science and Religion Michael Taylor (Bodley Head)

We’ve spent six weeks celebrating the best non-fiction books from the past year. On Monday night we will toast them all and learn the winner of The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025. (@newcollegeoxf.bsky.social)
duffcooperprize.org

The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize – The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize celebrates the best in non-fiction writing SHORTLIST Winner announcement 3 March 2025 SHORTLIST Winner announcement 3 March 2025

Learn more about Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War between Science and Religion by Michael Taylor (@TheBodleyHead), along with the other shortlisted books, on our website.

The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025 winner will be announced on 3rd March. duffcooperprize.org

Piers Brendon - Bones of Contention Piers Brendon: Bones of Contention - Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War Between Science and Religion by Michael Taylor

'Taylor’s book is everything that popular scholarly history should be. It is written with clarity, zest and wit. Although impressively wide-ranging, it sustains a strong storyline. Exciting scenes abound’.
Piers Brendon in Literary Review
literaryreview.co.uk/bones-of-con...

Book review: Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the war between science and religion by Michael Taylor These creatures were 19th-century celebrities, says Adam Ford

‘Michael Taylor has produced a greatly informative, meticulously researched, and exciting read, tracing the relationship between Christianity and the explosive effects of scientific theory.’
Adam Ford reviews Impossible Monsters in @churchtimes.bsky.social www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

History Extra podcast - Podcast Episode | Global Player Dinosaurs: a Victorian obsession

'Extinction was heresy. Noah saved every single creature from the flood… it was thought that if a creature went extinct afterwards, well there was no biblical evidence for that’.
Michael Taylor talks about Impossible Monsters on @historyextra.bsky.social
www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/epi...

YouTube video by UnHerd Dinosaurs vs. God: The original culture war

'There’s a culture war… I’m interested in how evidence forces people to change opinions and how people reject evidence'
Michael Taylor (@mhtaylor.bsky.social) discusses Impossible Monsters with Giles Fraser on @unherd.com podcast
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL6D...

Dinosaurs ‘drowned in Noah’s Flood’ – so said the Victorian Church Impossible Monsters captivatingly outlines how the unearthing of strange bones toppled traditional understanding of the origins of the world

‘As Taylor says, "if nothing but evolution separated humankind from brute animals, what was there naturally to separate the ruling classes from the masses?"’
Roger Lewis reviews Impossible Monsters in @telegraphnews.bsky.social
www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fi...

Impossible Monsters by Michael Taylor review — the Victorian war between science and religion A fresh take on the familiar tale of how Darwin and dinosaur bones shook the faith of Victorians

'Taylor movingly tells us of the agony inflicted by scientific discovery on the "honest doubters", such as James Anthony Froude, who gave up his Oxford fellowship in 1849 rather than profess what he now thought was untruth.'
AN Wilson @thetimes.com
www.thetimes.com/uk/religion/...

‘Impossible Monsters’ and ‘Dinosaurs at the Dinner Table’: Fossils Versus Faith As prehistoric bones were unearthed, some Victorians wondered about the timeline of creation and the nature of God.

‘Michael Taylor offers an elegantly written, compellingly readable account of the "culture war between the guardians of orthodoxy and the agents of change."’
Gerard Helferich reviews Impossible Monsters in @wsj.com
www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

How fossil evidence challenged biblical literalism Mary Anning was only twelve when her older brother Joseph entrusted her with a task that would have serious ramifications for our understanding of time,

A ‘measured approach and lively prose make for an extremely enjoyable excursion into a world where impossible monsters emerged from beneath the ground and forced us to rethink all our beliefs’.
Susannah Gibson on Impossible Monsters @thetls.bsky.social
www.the-tls.co.uk/science-tech...

Impossible Monsters by Michael Taylor review – fossil feuds A marvellous history of science vs creationism in Victorian Britain

'Taylor, belongs to that rare class of writers who can effortlessly encompass both scientific arcana and intellectual currents. There are some deliciously provocative passages in this book'
@pratinavanil.bsky.social reviews Impossible Monsters @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/books/2024/m...

Michael Taylor’s Recommended Reads We are celebrating The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025 by inviting each of the shortlisted authors to share their favourite non-fiction books. Here are Michael Taylor’s recommendations.

‘Sometimes, you realise that you are experiencing something of greatness. This book, maybe one of the finest of all historical biographies, gave me one of those thrills.’
Michael Taylor recommends his favourite non-fiction on @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social uk.bookshop.org/lists/michae...

Quote card reading: All these men (and they were almost exclusively men) knew each other on a first-name basis; they walked and dined and lived together; and it was the strength or weakness of their relationships which often determined how well their ideas were received. Michael Taylor in conversation. Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War between Science and Religion is shortlisted for The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize

Michael Taylor (mhtaylor.bsky.social) discusses writing, dinosaurs, Impossible Monsters (The Bodley Head) and the history of ideas. Read the interview on our website. duffcooperprize.org/conversation...

Image of a book Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War between Science and Religion by Michael Taylor. Alongside text reading: ‘Impossible Monsters vividly recaptures a vital time when men and women, gifted amateurs and diligent professionals addressed fundamental questions. As Michael Taylor shows, with elegance, fluency and scholarship, the "dinosaur wars" of the nineteenth century made and unmade reputations, and were fought at once with high principles and low cunning.’ The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize judge David Horspool

'Michael Taylor shows, with elegance, fluency and scholarship, the "dinosaur wars" of the nineteenth century made and unmade reputations, and were fought at once with high principles and low cunning.'
The Duff Cooper Prize judge David Horspool
@mhtaylor.bsky.social