A leading expert on ornithology and evolutionary biology, Tim Birkhead is emeritus Professor of Behavioural Ecology at Sheffield University and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His bestselling book Bird Sense was shortlisted for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize for Science Books in 2013 and What It’s Like to Be a Bird was the winner of the 2022 Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction. Sir David Attenborough described his writing as ‘magnificent’.

Tim’s awards for science, teaching and outreach include the Elliot Coues Medal for outstanding contributions to ornithological research, the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour medal, the BOU’s Godman-Salvin Medal for distinguished ornithological work, the Zoological Society of London’s Silver Medal, and the Evolution Society’s Stephen Jay Gould Award.

Tim’s collection of ornithology titles includes The Wisdom of Birds, Bird Sense, The Most Perfect Thing, The Wonderful Mr Willughby and Birds and Us. His latest book is The Great Auk: It’s Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife.  It was be published by Bloomsbury Sigma in spring 2025.

The Great Auk was inspired in part by Tim’s fifty-year long study of guillemots on Skomer – you can track Tim’s journey in the short film The Birdman of Skomer.

Photo courtesy of Ben Cherry

Bestselling cookery writer and TV star cook, Dame Mary has written over 80 cookbooks, including the classic Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook (DK, 2017) which has sold over 1.5 million copies internationally and The Complete Aga Cookbook (Headline, 2015). Her career began when she developed a passion for domestic science at school – something she outlines in her charming autobiography Recipe for Life (Michael Joseph, 2013) – and she went on to train at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.

Both Mary Berry’s Baking Bible (2009) and Mary Berry At Home (2013) hit #1 with BBC books. Other highlights include her hugely successful Mary Berry’s Christmas Collection (Headline, 2013) and Mary Berry Cooks Up a Feast (DK, 2019). She frequently writes with her assistant of over thirty years, Lucy Young. In 2020, Mary received the honour of Damehood in the Queen’s birthday honours.

Mary’s book, Cook and Share (BBC Books, 2022) accompanies her new BBC TV series. From an indulgent Mac and Cheese to a mouth-watering Sunday Lunch Crumble Cake, Mary Berry returns with 120 utterly irresistible recipes that help you to create maximum flavour with minimal time and effort.

Her most recent release is a revised edition of Mary Berry’s Baking Bible (Ebury, 2023), which contains 250 fool-proof recipes, including timeless classics such as Frosted Walnut Cake and Hot Chocolate Soufflés alongside new recipes and updated photography.

Photo courtesy of Georgia Glynn Smith

Royal Society Professor of Physiology at Oxford, Frances Ashcroft was one of five women to be made Laureates in the Unesco Science Awards for Women. Her work with insulin has transformed the lives of children suffering from diabetes. Collins published her successful Life at the Extremes, a study of what the human body can endure, from extremes of heat and height to depth and darkness. Penguin Press UK and Norton US published The Spark of Life – a book on electricity in the body which won the 2013 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science. She plans a book on Hormones.

Erica Benner is a political philosopher and historian of ideas who has taught at Oxford, the LSE, and Yale. She has two earlier, acclaimed books on Niccolò Machiavelli, Machiavelli’s Ethics (Princeton, 2009) and Machiavelli’s Prince: A New Reading (OUP, 2013), and a book on the history of nationalist thinking, Really Existing Nationalisms (OUP, 1995 and Verso, 2018).

In 2017, Penguin Allen Lane published her Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli’s Lifelong Quest for Freedom. It was shortlisted for the 2018 Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, chosen as a Guardian and Observer Book of the Year, and received glowing reviews in the US and in Italy, where its translation as Esser Volpe: Vita di Machiavelli was called ‘monumental – not to be missed.’

During lockdown, Erica started writing a new book about how she has been grappling with democracy’s contradictions since her time as a teenager in Japan. Her latest book, Adventures in Democracy is the culmination of this project and will be published in February 2024 by Allen Lane. It was one of The Financial Times‘ ‘What to read in 2024’ and received a glowing review from The Guardian: ‘a sparkling page-turner full of wit, original insight and unassuming erudition’. Erica is also working on a book set during the Peloponnesian War.

David Barrie’s Sextant is a beautifully written account of the art of celestial navigation and the vital part it played in the exploration and mapping of the world. It was published by HarperPress and William Morrow in 2014 to excellent reviews. Translations have also been published by Rizzoli in Italy and Mare in Germany. It was shortlisted for the Mountbatten Literary Prize.

David’s latest book, Incredible Journeys: Exploring the Wonders of Animal Navigation was published in April 2019 by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK and The Experiment in the US. It went on to win Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year 2019. A devotee of the work of John Ruskin, David edited an abridged version of his magnum opus Modern Painters that was published in 1987 by André Deutsch.

After studying Psychology and Philosophy at Oxford University, David served in the Diplomatic Service for fifteen years. He was later Director of the National Art Collections Fund (now the Art Fund). David has also been active in the field of criminal justice reform as Chair of the campaigning organisation Make Justice Work. He was awarded a CBE in 2010.

David is an experienced navigator and has made many long passages under sail. He is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He lives in London and Emsworth.

James Barr has worked in politics, at the Daily Telegraph, in the city and as a political officer at the British Embassy in Paris. He now runs his own research business. In 2006, Bloomsbury published his history of the Arab revolt during the First World War, Setting the Desert on Fire. In 2011 he followed this with A Line in the Sand, Britain, France and the struggle that shaped the Middle East (Simon & Schuster), which earned brilliant reviews. His latest book, Lords of the Desert: Britain’s Struggle with America to Dominate the Middle East, published in August 2018 (Simon & Schuster), tells the story of the rise of America and the fall of Britain in the Middle East. Some of its praise includes, ‘a dramatic, absorbing account’ by Prospect and ‘a riveting tale of Great Power competition, skulduggery and backstabbing’ by The Sunday Times. 

The Arena: Three Thousand Years of Conflict in the Middle East, a sweeping history of the great power conflict in the region, was recently acquired by Headline in a “heated” six-way auction.

Dr Mark Avery writes mostly on birds, their biology and their conservation. He worked for the RSPB for 25 years – first as a scientist but for nearly 13 years as Conservation Director. In 2011 he left the RSPB to go freelance. He writes a daily blog on UK nature conservation issues and regularly for British Wildlife, BBC Wildlife and Birdwatch magazines. He lives in rural Northamptonshire.