The Wellcome Book Prize reveals 2015 shortlist

'The Iceberg' by Marion Coutts (Atlantic)

• 'The Iceberg' is an exploration of the impact of death in real time, a sustained act of looking that only ends when life does. It gives an account of a small family unit under assault, and the inventiveness by which they tried to stay together. In it, Marion Coutts charts the deterioration in her husband Tom Lubbock's speech even as she records the developing language of their child. The book navigates with great power the journey from home to hospital to hospice.
• Marion Coutts is an artist and writer. She wrote the introduction to Tom Lubbock's memoir 'Until Further Notice, I am Alive', published by Granta in 2012. She is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and lives in London with her son.

'Do No Harm' by Henry Marsh (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

• 'Do No Harm' is an astonishingly candid insight into the life and work of a modern neurosurgeon – its triumphs and disasters.
• Henry Marsh read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University before studying medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1984 and was appointed Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's/St George's Hospital in London in 1987, where he still works full time. He has been the subject of two major documentary films, 'Your Life in Their Hands', which won the Royal Television Society Gold Medal, and 'The English Surgeon', featuring his work in the Ukraine, which won an Emmy. He was made a CBE in 2010 and was on the judging panel for the Wellcome Book Prize 2012. He is married to the anthropologist and writer Kate Fox.

'Bodies of Light' by Sarah Moss (Granta)

• 'Bodies of Light' is a profound and provocative book about family and a radically modern novel with a 19th-century setting. It is a gripping story told with rare precision and tenderness.
• Sarah Moss was educated at Oxford University and is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. She is the author of two novels: 'Cold Earth' (2010) and 'Night Waking' (2011), which was selected for the Fiction Uncovered Award in 2011, as well as 'Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland' (2012), which was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2013.

'The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being' by Alice Roberts (Quercus)

• In 'The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being', the presenter of BBC’s 'The Incredible Human Journey' takes a surprising tour around the human body, explaining how we function and how we might evolve.
• Alice Roberts is an anatomist and anthropologist, television presenter, author and Professor of Public Engagement with Science at the University of Birmingham. She has presented 'Coast', 'Horizon' and several series about human evolution – including 'The Incredible Human Journey', 'Origins of Us' and 'Prehistoric Autopsy' – on BBC 2. She has also presented 'Inside Science' on Radio 4, and writes a regular science column for The Observer. Her previous books include 'Evolution: The Human Story', 'The Incredible Human Journey' and 'The Complete Human Body'. She lives near Bristol with her husband and two children.

'My Age of Anxiety' by Scott Stossel (Windmill Books)

'My Age of Anxiety' is a riveting, revelatory and moving account of one man’s battle with anxiety, and a history of the efforts to understand the condition by scientists, philosophers, artists, and writers, from Freud to Hippocrates and from Samuel Johnson to Charles Darwin.

• Scott Stossel is the editor of The Atlantic. Previously, he was the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is also the author of 'Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver'. A graduate of Harvard, he lives with his family in Washington DC.

'All My Puny Sorrows' by Miriam Toews (Faber)'

• All My Puny Sorrows' by Miriam Toews is a story of sisters, suicide and how to carry on with hope when grief loads the heart.
• Miriam Toews (pronounced taves) was born in 1964 in the small Mennonite town of Steinbach, Manitoba, in Canada. She has published six novels - including 'A Boy of Good Breeding', 'A Complicated Kindness', 'The Flying Troutmans' and 'Irma Voth' - and a memoir of her father, 'Swing Low'. Toews is the recipient of numerous literary awards including the Governor General's Award, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award (twice), and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. In 2007 she made her screen debut in the film Luz silenciosa. She was nominated for Best Actress at Mexico's Ariel Awards for her performance.

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