The Wellcome Book Prize celebrates the best new books that engage with an aspect of medicine, health or illness, showcasing the breadth and depth of our encounters with medicine through exceptional works of fiction and non-fiction.
The shortlist for this year’s prize has now been announced, and the books chosen have a fantastic breadth of topic and style. Perfect for reading groups, these books challenge, confront, inform and provide catharsis. Click through to any title to leave a review or to add the book to your group’s reading list.
2016 shortlist
- The Outrun by Amy Liptrot (Canongate)
- Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss (Granta)
- It’s All in Your Head by Suzanne O’Sullivan (Chatto & Windus)
- Playthings by Alex Pheby (Galley Beggar Press)
- The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink (Picador)
- Neurotribes by Steve Silberman (Allen & Unwin)
The Outrun is a remarkable memoir of addiction and recovery that marks the arrival of a significant new voice in nature writing. This 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.
Signs for Lost Children contains a unique blend of emotional insight and intellectual profundity, and Sarah Moss builds a novel in two parts from Falmouth to Tokyo, and from Manchester to Kyoto. It contains two distinct but conjoined portraits of loneliness and determination. The book is a powerful enquiry into the workings of the human mind and heart.
It’s All in Your Head allows consultant neurologist Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan to take us on a journey through the world of psychosomatic illness. We will 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; Rachel who was a promising dancer now stuck in the purgatory of ME.
Playthings provides a fascinating fictionalised retelling of the last days of Germany’s most famous schizophrenic. It follows on wonderfully from Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.
The Last Act of Love is a powerful, timely and incredibly moving memoir. Told with boundless warmth and affection, it is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family’s survival and the price we pay for love.
Neurotribes upends conventional thinking about autism and suggests a broader model for acceptance, understanding, and full participation in society for people who think differently. Winner of the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, this is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller.
Last April, Marion Coutts won the 2015 Prize for her deeply moving memoir, The Iceberg. This year’s winner will be announced on Monday 25 April.
Get involved
Which book do you think should win this year’s prize? Share your thoughts using #WBP2016 or comment below.
Keep up with the latest news on the Wellcome Book Prize website, and join in the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.
