Shortlisted. Hot gerund damn!

I just saw in the Times that the worms have been shortlisted for the Aventis Science book prize. Francis Spufford got his book on the shortlist too. Can it be true, as he tells me, that you get £1000 just for being on the shortlist? There’s £10,000 for the winner, but that will be either Bill Bryson or Matt Ridley. [update]. Yes. It is true. This year, the money’s just gravy, but I have wanted to get on this shortlist ever since I started writing science books, and it is really something to have got there as well as winning the Templeton prize for religious journalism. It ought to have made selling the big science-and-god book easier, too.