THE LONGLIST for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize has been announced.
The prize celebrates works of fiction and non-fiction that "engage with the topics of health and medicine and the many ways they touch our lives."
The 2017 longlist of 12 books was selected by a judging panel chaired by Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, alongside Simon Baron-Cohen, Gemma Cairney, Tim Lewens and Di Speirs and
includes How To Survive a Plague by David France, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal, The Golden Age by Joan London, Cure by Jo Marchant, The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss, The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford, Miss Jane by Brad Watson and I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong.
The list includes seven non-fiction and five fiction titles the longlist includes memoir, contemporary fiction, historical novel and popular science. Authors from the UK and USA appear on the list as well as the first Australian, French and Israeli contenders for the £30,000 prize.
Four independent publishers appear on the list: Canongate, Granta, Europa Editions and Serpent’s Tail.
wellcomebookprize.org
A CALL has gone out for men to join the cast of a large-scale community Passion Play which will happen in the centre of Edinburgh on Easter weekend.
Suzanne Lofthus, director of The Edinburgh Easter Play, says she is a "few disciples short" of the dozen required ahead of the big production in Princes Street Gardens West on April 15.
She is also looking for young men to play soldiers.
This is the first time for six years that a traditional costumed Passion Play has been staged in the Gardens. In a new development this year, Kamala Maniam’s script has been adapted so that some of the characters speak in Scots dialect.
Anyone interested in being part of The Edinburgh Easter Play is invited to come along to weekly rehearsals on Wednesdays at 7pm in Gorgie Dalry Stenhouse Church, 190-192 Gorgie Road, or contact Suzanne on cuttingedge21@btopenworld.com.
DR HAMISH Brown MBE, Scottish mountaineer, lecturer, photographer, writer, poet and international mountain guide, has joined the Fort William Mountain Festival Hall of Fame as the 10th recipient of The Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture.
Nominated by the public and his peers as a mountain hero who "celebrates achievement, accomplishment and the spirit of adventure" Dr Brown joins previous winners such as Dr Adam Watson, Jimmy Marshall and Ian Sykes in the festival award’s 10th anniversary year. At 82 Hamish Brown, one of the most accomplished British hill walkers of the past 50 years, is best known for his walking exploits in the Scottish Highlands.
mountainfestival.co.uk
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