I think you know by now that Literary Masters book groups and literary salons focus mainly on fiction, but each season we ‘dig deep’ into a non-fiction treasure. My favorite so far, and I think my LM members would agree, is Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the UK’s premier award for non-fiction work, in 2010.
The 2013 winner of this prestigious award has just been announced, so let’s congratulate Lucy Hughes-Hallett, author of The Pike. Her account of “a celebrated poet and Italian nationalist who was simultaneously repugnant and alluring” is evidently a form-breaking type of biography that escapes the restrictions of the genre. Sounds intriguing. The book won over an impressive shortlist of titles:
For more information on the Samuel Johnson Prize, including past winners, click here.
What good non-fiction have you read recently?