Nonfiction Finalists 
Devra Davis
When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception
and the Battle Against Pollution
 |
 |
Devra
Davis's work as a leading epidemiologist and researcher
on the environmental causes of breast cancer and chronic
disease has made her an internationally known figure.
She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and an
MPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She
is currently a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at
Carnegie Mellon University, and lives in Pittsburgh and
Washington, D.C. |
|
| |
The
author, a leading public health expert, confronts both
public triumphs and private failures in the battle against
environmental pollution. She reports on the deadly London
smog of 1952 (when deaths were falsely attributed to influenza);
behind-the-scenes machinations by oil companies and auto
manufacturers to keep lead in gasoline; and the pollution
that killed many in her own family and forced others -
survivors of the 1948 smog emergency in Donora, Pennsylvania
- to live out their lives with damaged health. |
|
| |
Atul Gawande
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
|
 |
A graduate
of Harvard Medical School and a Rhodes Scholar, Atul
Gawande is also a staff writer at The New Yorker
covering science and medicine. He is chief surgical resident
at Boston's Brigham & Women's Hospital. He lives in
Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children. |
|
| |
A
Boston surgeon recounts true cases of patients and doctors
making critical choices when the science was ambiguous,
information was limited, and the stakes were high. The
author, who is also the son of physicians, scrutinizes
what happens when medicine comes face-to-face with the
inexplicable. |
|
| |
Elizabeth Gilbert
The Last American Man
|
 |
Elizabeth
Gilbert is the author of a short-story collection,
Pilgrims (1997), and a novel, Stern Men (2000).
She works as a writer-at-large for GQ magazine,
and her journalism has been published in Harper's Bazaar,
Spin, and The New York Times Magazine. Her
stories have appeared in Esquire, Story,
and The Paris Review. She lives in New York City. |
|
| |
Masculine
identity in America - along with our various ingrained
ideas about inventiveness, narcissism, isolation, and
intimacy - are all explored in the course of unraveling
the story of Eustace Conway, a self-made "throwback"
who deserted suburbia's comforts at the age of 17 to make
his way in the Appalachian Mountains, where he has lived
off the land for the past 20 years. |
|
| |
Steve Olson
Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through
Our Genes
|
 |
Steve
Olson has worked for the National Academy of Sciences,
the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy,
and the Institute of Genomic Research. A science journalist
with more than 20 years experience, he is the author of
several other books, including Shaping the Future
and Biotechnology, and has written for The Atlantic
Monthly, Science, and many other magazines.
He lives outside Washington, D.C. |
|
| |
Literally
traveling across four continents, Steve Olson physically
and critically explored 150,000 years of human history.
The veteran science journalist charts the African origins
of modern humans, and, by following the migration of our
human ancestors throughout the world, presents a genealogy
of all humanity. |
|
|
|
|
|
