The Royal Society has named six finalists for the 2025 Trivedi Science Book Prize, recognising exceptional popular science writing worldwide.

The announcement, made at the Edinburgh International Book Festival by author and palaeontologist Steve Brusatte, followed an event with 2024 winner Kelly Weinersmith.

All shortlisted authors are first-time nominees, with works spanning neuroscience, environmental science, polar exploration, extinction, wartime botany, manufacturing, and the therapeutic use of music. The selection was made from 254 eligible titles published between 1 July 2024 and 30 September 2025.

The 2025 shortlist includes: Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and our Future by Neil Shubin (Oneworld); Music as Medicine: How We Can Harness Its Therapeutic Power by Daniel Levitin (Cornerstone Press, Penguin); Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist's Patients Taught Him About the Brain by Masud Husain (Canongate); The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad: A True Story of Science and Sacrifice in a City under Siege by Simon Parkin (Sceptre, Hachette); Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction by Sadiah Qureshi (Allen Lane, Penguin); and Your Life is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better by Tim Minshall (Faber & Faber).

The judging panel, chaired by Dr Sandra Knapp FRS of the Natural History Museum, includes crime fiction author Val McDermid; actor and comedian Nick Mohammed; Associate Professor of Astronomy at University of Cambridge and Royal Society University Research Fellow, Dr Amy Bonsor; structural engineer on the Shard and former Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize-shortlisted author, Roma Agrawal; and Jacob Aron, news editor at New Scientist.

The winner will be announced on 1 October 2025, receiving GBP25,000, while each runner-up will receive GBP2,500.

The Trivedi Science Book Prize has highlighted influential science writing for over three decades, with recent winners including Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, Ed Yong, Henry Gee, Merlin Sheldrake and Camilla Pang.