| The Ascent of Money | Niall Ferguson | Allen Lane |
| Call the Midwife | Jennifer Worth | Phoenix |
| A History of Modern Britain | Andrew Marr | Pan |
| The Mighty Book of Boosh | Noel Fielding & Julian Barratt | Canongate |
| Stephen Fry in America | Stephen Fry | HarperCollins |
| The Suspicions of Mr Whicher | Kate Summerscale | Bloomsbury |
The shortlist for the Non-Fiction Award is again an excellent demonstration of how any topic can be utterly fascinating in the hands of a charismatic and knowledgeable guide.
Four of the shortlist have benefited from television exposure. Niall Ferguson explained the complex world of international finance to Britons enduring the credit crunch. The book format allowed Andrew Marr to present a comprehensive overview of Britain’s past in a single volume and gave Stephen Fry the chance to dig a little deeper in his whistlestop tour of the fifty states of America. And BBC3 dedicated two nights of programming to the surreal world of the Mighty Boosh.
Meanwhile, Kate Summerscale traced our fascination for a good murder mystery to an infamous case in 1860, the first to receive national press attention, and Jennifer Worth pulled aside the veil of nostalgia to give us an authentic picture of Cockney grit in the East End of post-war London.
So, which of the six do you think deserves the Play.com Popular Non-Fiction Award?
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