The Aventis Prizes for Science Books

The Aventis Prizes for Science Books is an annual award for the previous year's best general science writing and best science writing for children. The nominees and winners are decided by the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science. The prizes were established in 1988.

General Prize

This category is awarded to the best science writing for a non-specialist audience.

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2004 Winner

The winner was announced on June 14 2004:

Related Topics:
June 14 - 2004

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• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

The other nominees for 2004 were:

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• In The Beginning Was the Worm, Andrew Brown
• Magic Universe, Nigel Calder
• Mutants, Armand Marie Leroi
• Nature Via Nurture, Matt Ridley
• Backroom Boys, Francis Spufford

2003 Winner

• Right Hand, Left Hand, Chris McManus

Other nominees:

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• Small World, Mark Buchanan
• Reckoning With Risk, Gerd Gigerenzer
• The Extravagant Universe, Robert P. Kirshner
• The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker
• Where Is Everybody?, Stephen Webb

2002 Winner

• The Universe in a Nutshell, Stephen Hawking

Other nominees:

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• Aeons, Martin Gorst
• The Secret Life of Dust, Hannah Holmes
• The Madness of Adam & Eve, David Horrobin
• A Primate's Memoir, Robert M. Sapolsky
• Rivals, Michael White

2001 Winner

• Mapping the Deep, Robert Kunzig

2000 Winner

• ', Brian Greene

Other nominees:

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• The White Death, Thomas Dormandy
• A Brief History of the Future, John Naughton
• Genome, Matt Ridley
• Time, Love, Memory, Jonathan Weiner
• Children of Prometheus, Christopher Wills

Pre-2000 Winners

• (1999) The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Paul Hoffman
• (1998) Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
• (1997) The Wisdom of Bones, Alan Walker and Pat Shipman
• (1996) Plague’s Progress, Arno Karlen
• (1995) The Consumer’s Good Chemical Guide, John Emsley
• (1994) The Language of the Genes, Steve Jones
• (1993) The Making of Memory, Steven Rose
• (1992) The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond
• (1991) Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould
• (1990) The Emperor's New Mind, Roger Penrose
• (1989) Bones of Contention, Roger Lewin
• (1988) Living with Risk, British Medical Association Board of Science