UCL’s Dr Helen Czerski has been shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize writing on Conservation
23 August 2024
Blue Machine was selected for the prize to highlight the growing genre of nature-writing in literature as a celebration of the world we live in.
The book Blue Machine, written by MechEng Associate Professor Helen Czerski, has been shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation. The Wainwright Prizes were named in honour of Alfred Wainwright, the author of the famous fell walking series, and recognise the UK’s best books on the general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing.
Blue Machine:. Its focus is a huge story that is rarely told – that of our ocean. Not the fish or the dolphins, but the ocean engine itself: what it does, why it works, and the many ways it has influenced animals, weather and human history & culture. It has been very well received: it was chosen as a BBC Radio 4 book of the week and listed as one of the top non-fiction books of 2023 by the Times, the Financial Times and Science magazine.
Helen studies the breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface, particularly in very stormy seas, alongside laboratory studies of bubble physics. In November and December 2023, she spent five weeks on a research ship in the Labrador Sea, deploying instruments on a buoy built by the brilliant MechEng workshop. Her practical work at sea features in the book, alongside many other stories of human and animal lives at and near the ocean.
The Wainwright Prize winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 11th September 2024.
Links
Link to all shortlisted books: https://wainwrightprize.com/shortlist/
Link to the part of the webpage on Blue Machine: https://wainwrightprize.com/shortlisted/blue-machine/