The 2006 longlist for the contemporary non-fiction prize included a biography of a self-proclaimed Muslim prince; an engrossing account of Soviet-US relations from WWII to the collapse of the USSR; an intimate and personal reflection of a man's life written when he thought he was dying; a lively biography of the first domestic diva of the modern age, Mrs Beeton; and an evocative 'blog' by an anonymous woman in war-torn Iraq.
Untold Stories by Alan Bennett (Faber and Faber/Profile)
The Sale of the Late King's Goods by Jerry Brotton (Pan MacMillan)
Bad Faith by Carmen Callil (Jonathan Cape)
The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer (Time Warner Book Group/Abacus )
The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis (Penguin/Allen Lane)
Mozart's Women by Jane Glover (Pan Macmillan)
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton by Kathryn Hughes (Fourth Estate)
The Sailor in the Wardrobe by Hugo Hamilton (Fourth Estate)
Postwar by Tony Judt (William Heinemann)
The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000BC - 2000AD by Julia Lovell (Atlantic Books)
Ancient Americans by Charles C Mann (Granta Books)
Rosebery by Leo McKinstry (John Murray)
Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale (Faber and Faber)
Before the Fall-Out by Diana Preston (Transworld/Doubleday)
The Orientalist by Tom Reiss (Chatto and Windus)
Baghdad Burning by Riverbend (Marion Boyars Publishers)
1599: A Year In The
Life Of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro (Faber and Faber)
Witnesses Of War by Nicholas Stargardt (Jonathan Cape)
After The Victorians by A N Wilson (Hutchinson)
