Samuel Johnson Prize shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction writing has been announced.

The six titles include Jonathan Bate's Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life and Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks.

A variety of genres, from journalism, philosophy and biography to memoir and science, feature in the shortlist.

The £20,000 prize, described by organisers as the UK's most prestigious of its type, was won last year by Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk.

Macdonald was a special guest at the shortlist announcement by judges Sumit Paul-Choudhury and Rana Mitter at the London's Royal Festival Hall.

Her memoir, recounting how the death of her father prompted her to train a goshawk, went on to become a number one bestseller and to win last year's 2014 Costa Book of the Year Award.

The award is said to illustrate how non-fiction can explore the "diverse facets of human existence in different ways".

The list in full:

• Jonathan Bate, Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life

• Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks

• Laurence Scott, The Four-Dimensional Human

• Steve Silberman, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently

• Emma Sky, The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq

• Samanth Subramanian, This Divided Island

This year's shortlist was chosen by a panel chaired by Pulitzer prize-winning historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, with editor of Intelligent Life Emma Duncan, editor of New Scientist Sumit Paul-Choudhury, director of China Centre at Oxford University Professor Rana Mitter and head of Film 4 Tessa Ross.

Applebaum said: "We didn't quite come to blows, but the shortlist meeting was truly contentious; it's hard to imagine how five people sitting in a room on a weekday morning could have disagreed more strongly."

Toby Mundy, executive director of the Samuel Johnson Prize, said: "After a fiercely argued judges meeting, we now have a shortlist of terrific range and quality, proving that non-fiction publishing in this country is in rude health."

The winner will be announced on 2 November.