In this podcast, you will hear three members of the Physics World editorial team – Matin Durrani, Margaret Harris and Tushna Commissariat – make the case for their favourite books on the shortlist, while James Dacey moderates the discussion. How well does each book meet our criteria of being well written, scientifically interesting and novel? What are their strengths and shortcomings? And in an unusually competitive year for the award, which book emerged as the overall winner?

Shortlist for Physics World‘s Book of the Year 2013 (alphabetical by author)

The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body Frances Ashcroft

The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads us to the Edge of a New World Sean Carroll

Hans Christian Ørsted: Reading Nature’s Mind Dan Charly Christensen

Churchill’s Bomb: a Hidden History of Science, War and Politics Graham Farmelo

Physics in Mind: a Quantum View of the Brain Werner Loewenstein

J Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center Ray Monk

The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets Simon Singh

Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe Lee Smolin

The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky

Weird Life: the Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own David Toomey