Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize announces their shortlist

The judges of the 70th Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize are delighted to announce today (21 January 2026), the shortlist of the best non-fiction books published in the UK during 2025. The winner will be announced on 16 March 2026.  

Unusual perspectives characterise the five shortlisted books - two biographies, two histories and a journey in the pawprints of a wolf. 

Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler - Tim Bouverie (Bodley Head) 

A Scandal in Königsberg - Christopher Clark (Allen Lane)

The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief - Richard Holmes (Harper Collins)

John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs - Ian Leslie (Faber & Faber)

Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe - Adam Weymouth (Hutchinson Heinemann)

Ian Leslie's reassessment of the creative drive behind the Beatles uncovers a more complex dynamic between Lennon and McCartney than previously thought (John and Paul), while Richard Holmes rescues Alfred Lord Tennyson from his petrification as a Victorian sage, by reminding us of his youth, when he was wildly excited by science and assailed by religious doubt (The Boundless Deep). Tim Bouverie reveals that maintaining the network of alliances against Hitler was almost as challenging as defeating Nazism itself (Allies at War), and Christopher Clark, by focusing on two charismatic preachers in a provincial Baltic port, shows how easily gossip erupts into something far more dangerous (A Scandal in Königsberg). Far above sea level, Adam Weymouth’s walk through the mountains of Slovenia, Italy and Austria exposes irreconcilable differences between wildlife experts and isolated farming communities (Lone Wolf).

Artemis Cooper, chair of the jury, says: “In their variety, their curiosity and their creativity, the books on this shortlist reveal the incredible richness of contemporary non-fiction writing.” 

The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize celebrates the best in non-fiction writing with a £5,000 prize. The award, now in its 70th year, has been given annually ever since 1956. 

New College, Oxford is the home of the Duff Cooper Memorial Fund, the charity responsible  for the Prize. Duff Cooper read History at the college between 1908 and 1911, and benefited  from its culture of tolerance, its remarkable library, and the wide learning of its tutors.