I told you that Matthew’s new biography of Francis Crick was good! Now Crick: A Mind in Motion has been given the imprimatur of quality by winning a big book prize in England. Matthew sent me his Bluehair post below, and when I asked him what prize he won, he replied:
Hatchard’s First Biography Prize. Hatchards is a posh bookshop on Piccadilly where the King buys his books. I will get a proper cheque. £2.5k!
It is a big check—in both senses:
I won! I have a big cheque!
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-03-05T19:23:03.888Z
Below is the site for the prize (click to go there). Note, too that Matthew’s book beat out the John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, a book about Lennon and McCartney and Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealisme, a kiss-and-tell memoirSarah Wynn-Williams, who used to work for Facebook and who has been clobbered with lawsuits by that company and other people.
And the site’s announcement:
Hatchards has teamed up with The Biographers’ Club to support the Best First Biography Prize.
The prize awards £2,500 to the best biography or memoir published that year, and has been won in recent years by Daniel Finkelstein, Katherine Rundell and Osman Yousefzada, Lea Ypi, Heather Clark, Jonathan Phillips, Bart van Es, Edmund Gordon and Hisham Matar.
This year’s winner is Crick by Matthew Cobb.
Go buy it, or take it out from the library to read it. (This advice is for people who are interested in science, but if you’re not, you shouldn’t be reading here.)
Congratulations to Matthew! I told him to use the £2500 prize to treat himself to something nice, like a vacation.
Congratulations, Matthew!
Congratulations, Matthew! I read the book and I approve this prize!
Awesome!
Congratulations!
I personally think the title, its font and display on the cover and spine, capture and express the writing perfectly – strong, clear, and elegant – a rare combination!
Congratulations to Matthew! I’ve wondered how one can deposit or cash a big check like that.
My bank lets me take a photo of a cheque and upload it for payment. That should work for his cheque, except the amount is over the limit which the bank applies to this method.
Well-deserved. Excellent book, Matthew! I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I recommend getting it in hardback: Lots of nice illustrations and photos.
Congratulations to Matthew Cobb.
Bigger than the Beatles. Not too shabby!
I do plan to borrow the book from my library. However I’m number 4 on the wait list and they only have one copy available for public borrowing. Looking forward to it though!
Congratulations! It’s a great book.
I am waiting for a copy of the book through my library’s inter-library loan program. It’s a tiny library in a small town. They can’t stock everything I want to read, but they are very kind about getting books for me otherwise. Like Jerry, I have to resort to library books, because I have run out of room on my shelves.
Congratulations Matthew! I very much enjoyed your two books on the resistance in France during WWII, so I look forward to reading Crick. (Those books I did buy when I still had room.)
Excellent and congrats!
I have the book on order, awaiting my arrival back home.
D.A.
NYC
Well done, indeed. A win for Matthew, Crick — and science!
Me too! Congratulations Matthew. Well deserved. I enjoyed the book very much…so well researched and soooo nicely written in Matthew’s trademark, comfortable-to-read style.
Congratulations to Matthew! I received a signed copy of his Crick biography for my birthday in December.
I created the (not very good) Wikipedia article about him a few years ago, but haven’t looked at it recently to see how up-to-date it is.
Congratulations, Dr. Cobb! (I just received your earlier book As Gods / The Moral History of the Genetic Age, and I am really looking forward to- from the flyleaf- knowing “…how we got here and where we are going.”
Congratulations, Matthew! You certainly provided Greater Manchester Humanists with a cracking talk regarding CRISPR a few years ago….regards, David (Milne) co-vice Chair, GMH
Wonderful news. Congratulations!
I have ordered the book.