Beating the decline of biography

As Dr Johnson famously observed, ‘No man but a blockhead wrote, except for money.’ But even the wisest don’t write for all that much these days. The prevailing view is that the market for serious non-fiction is wilting. Therefore the publicity of prizes counts for double. Yesterday, the shortlist for the BBC’S Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction was announced. The nominees will get some coveted coverage on the Culture Show in the coming weeks.

The shortlist includes some familiar names to readers of this blog. John Stubbs has made the cut with his book, Reprobates, which re-casts the term ‘Cavaliers’ and re-imagines their role in the English Civil Wars. Stubbs wrote an introduction to his work for the book blog back in February.        

Also, Spectator regular Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist, an original delve into the origins and effects of self-interest, is on the list. Readers will be au fait with Ridley’s forthright style and approach. The book has forced horrified gasps from the core of convinced progressives. Geneticist Steve Jones challenged Ridley’s belief that self-interest was a fundamental human trait but not one that is uniformly positive, and then compared him to Gibbon. Surely being compared to Gibbon is compliment?

The other entries include: a life of Bismarck by Jonathan Steinburg (reviewed by Margaret Macmillan for the Spectator), Liberty’s Exiles by Maya Jasanoff (reviewed by John Preston for the Spectator), Andrew Graham-Dixon’s life of Caravaggio (reviewed by Ian Thompson for the Spectator) and Frank Dikotter’s history of Chairman Mao’s great famine (reviewed by Jasper Becker for the Spectator).

As Johnson remarked, ‘Hope is necessary in every condition.’ So the best of luck of to them all. The winner will be announced on 7 July.