The BBC Samuel Johnson Prize rewards excellence in non-fiction. This year’s longlist contains several popular science books from some familiar authors.

Science Blogging 09 keynote, celebrity blogger and posterboy for Skepticism Ben Goldacre gets the nod for his entertaining and horrifying volume Bad Science.

UCL’s Steve Jones, something of an elder statesman of popular science, is no stranger to book awards and makes this list with his Darwin’s Island.

Other titles include Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Patricia Fara, Manjit Kumar’s Quantum, and Richard Holmes’ Age of Wonder, about the Romantics’ perception of science.

In its ten year history, the prize has never gone to a scientific title, so fingers crossed for 2009, where over a quarter of the longlist could be found on the science bookshelf. The winner will be announced at Kings Place on 30 June.