British Academy Book Prize 2025 | Graeme Lawson’s reading recommendations
Posted by Graeme Lawson
Our final set of reading recommendations comes from British Academy Book Prize nominee Graeme Lawson, author of Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story. He selects three fascinating explorations of archaeology.
Meet all of the shortlisted authors at the British Academy Book Prize shortlist event on Tuesday 21 October at 6 p.m. at the British Academy and online. Tickets are free, but booking is essential – find out more here.
The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance by Mensun Bound
The fate of the disastrous Imperial Transantarctic Expedition of 1914, the destruction of its ship and the men’s miraculous escape from the ice, is one of the greatest survival stories of the twentieth century. Bringing the drama vividly back to life, this first-hand account of the wreck’s recent discovery is told by one of the world’s most experienced, passionate and eloquent maritime archaeologists. If you like to know how archaeology works, this is definitely one for you.
Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape by Francis Pryor
If you were amazed and delighted by Francis Pryor’s The Making of the British Landscape but haven’t yet read his Stonehenge, you’ve a treat in store. Focusing on British prehistory’s most iconic monument, it’s a wonderfully insightful, elegantly written and splendidly illustrated book, by an archaeologist who knows his subject inside out and knows how to tell a complex story with clarity and passion.
Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through our Past and Future World by Helen Gordon
In Notes from Deep Time natural historian Helen Gordon takes us on a breathtaking whistle-stop tour through the layered history and prehistory of the ground that lies beneath our feet. Explaining not only what we know but how we’ve come to know it, it’s a thoroughly engaging and eminently readable exploration of historical, archaeological and geological time: a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered about time and stratigraphy but was afraid to ask.
Graeme Lawson is the author of Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story, published by Vintage Books. See all the books on the British Academy Book Prize shortlist here.
