Judge: Wainwright Prize 2025

Today, the Wainwright Prize shortlists are being announced. I’m also delighted that I am, for the second year running, a judge for the Wainwright Nature Writing Prize.
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When I was asked to judge this year, I immediately said yes but as the books started arriving I was both excited and concerned. Reading 12 books to a timescale is no small feat. I love reading, but under normal circumstances I’m very all or nothing. Sometimes I read a book in a day, sometimes nothing for months.
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The books in both the longlist and the shortlist for 2025 have also challenged me in different ways, because the thing about judging is that you don’t get to pick the books you read. They may be on a subject you don’t know anything about or a different pace to what you are used to. It’s the most intense kind of book club, because what you reflect back in your reading group has real-life consequences. The authors have poured their hearts, souls and lives into these pages and, somehow, you have decide which one is the best.
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The shortlist this year covers subjects from baby hares, colonial land grabs and intergeneration connection, to rural crafts, outdoor meditations and gardening, and a whole load of beautiful nuance in between. Every single book is important for a different reason and magic in it’s own way. We haven’t had our final judging session yet, so I have no idea who will be taking the title this year but I can, wholeheartedly and honestly, say that they will have deserved it. I loved them all for different reasons.
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The shortlist is:
🌿 The Possibility of Tenderness, Jason Allen-Paisant @jallenpaisant  (@hutchheinemann)
🌿 The Accidental Garden, Richard Mabey (@profile.books)
🌿 Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton @chloedaltonuk (@canongatebooks)
🌿 Our Oaken Bones, Merlin Hanbury-Tenison @merlinhanburytenison (Witness Books, @eburybooks)
🌿 Of Thorn & Briar, Paul Lamb @westcountry_hedgelayer (@simonschusteruk)
🌿 Intertidal, Yuvan Aves (@ithakapress)
🌿 Ingrained, Callum Robinson @callum.robinson.writes (@doubledayukbooks)
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You can find out more at wainwrightprize.com

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