The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction was yesterday awarded to Leviathan, Or The Whale, Philip Hoare's memoir of his life-long obsession and humanity's own fascination with whales.

The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize is the UK's most prestigious prize for nonfiction, a £20,000 award sponsored by the BBC and open to all nonfiction work in the realms of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts.

The other books shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize were:

• Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed (William Heinemann)
• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Fourth Estate)
• The Lost City of Z by David Grann(Simon and Schuster)
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (HarperPress)
• Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar (Icon Books)