Join Sue Prideaux, along with The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize judges Artemis Cooper & Miles Young, over a glass of fizz at @newcollegeoxf.bsky.social as part of the Oxford Literary Festival.
4th April, book now:
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...

Glad to hear you’re enjoying it!

Hear winner Sue Prideaux and Artemis Cooper, chair of The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, together at the Oxford Literary Festival at 12 noon on 4th April 2025.
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...

Thank you to all our judges, Artemis Cooper (chair); Miles Young, warden of New College, Oxford (@newcollegeoxf.bsky.social); Susan Brigden, David Horspool and Minoo Dinshaw.

Artemis Cooper, chair of judges, said: ‘Sue Prideaux’s Wild Thing brings to light a complex picture, of a man who struggled all his life to evoke his experience of being alive. She dazzles in the way she writes about his art and brings him alive in the context of his time.’

Learn more about Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War between Science and Religion by Michael Taylor (@TheBodleyHead), along with the other shortlisted books, on our website.

The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 2025 winner will be announced on 3rd March. duffcooperprize.org

'Taylor’s book is everything that popular scholarly history should be. It is written with clarity, zest and wit. Although impressively wide-ranging, it sustains a strong storyline. Exciting scenes abound’.
Piers Brendon in Literary Review
literaryreview.co.uk/bones-of-con...

‘Michael Taylor has produced a greatly informative, meticulously researched, and exciting read, tracing the relationship between Christianity and the explosive effects of scientific theory.’
Adam Ford reviews Impossible Monsters in @churchtimes.bsky.social www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

'Extinction was heresy. Noah saved every single creature from the flood… it was thought that if a creature went extinct afterwards, well there was no biblical evidence for that’.
Michael Taylor talks about Impossible Monsters on @historyextra.bsky.social
www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/epi...

'There’s a culture war… I’m interested in how evidence forces people to change opinions and how people reject evidence'
Michael Taylor (@mhtaylor.bsky.social) discusses Impossible Monsters with Giles Fraser on @unherd.com podcast
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL6D...

‘As Taylor says, "if nothing but evolution separated humankind from brute animals, what was there naturally to separate the ruling classes from the masses?"’
Roger Lewis reviews Impossible Monsters in @telegraphnews.bsky.social
www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fi...

'Taylor movingly tells us of the agony inflicted by scientific discovery on the "honest doubters", such as James Anthony Froude, who gave up his Oxford fellowship in 1849 rather than profess what he now thought was untruth.'
AN Wilson @thetimes.com
www.thetimes.com/uk/religion/...

‘Michael Taylor offers an elegantly written, compellingly readable account of the "culture war between the guardians of orthodoxy and the agents of change."’
Gerard Helferich reviews Impossible Monsters in @wsj.com
www.wsj.com/arts-culture...