From the ground under our feet to the edge of space—that’s the scope of this year’s nonfiction finalists for the Kirkus Prize.

Six books made the shortlist for the $50,000 prize. All earned starred reviews and were selected by our jurors—journalists Hannah Bae and Mary Ann Gwinn—from the roughly 1,700 nonfiction books that Kirkus reviewed with publication dates between Nov. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2024.

Let’s start on the ground. Specifically, with English author Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise (Norton, June 25). During the pandemic, like millions around the world, Laing took to gardening for the solace it offered. Laing writes about this but digs up much more, exploring the notion of a garden as a paradise on Earth and shining a light on how these privately owned spaces are “a source of unquestioned privilege.” Our reviewer called the book “an intellectually verdant and emotionally rich narrative journey.”

Another British prize finalist, Adam Higginbotham, centers his latest investigative work on an explosion high above Earth that shocked the world in 1986. Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space (Avid Reader Press, May 14) shows readers how NASA was forced to devise new missions with constrained budgets for the space shuttle—leading to catastrophic results. Our critic hailed the book as a “deeply researched, fluently written study in miscommunication, hubris, and technological overreach.”

Steve Coll takes a similarly expansive view of his subject in The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq (Penguin Press, Feb. 27). It’s now known that supposed weapons of mass destruction were used to justify the Iraq War, but Coll’s research, Kirkus’ review said, “turns up a great deal of unfamiliar, illuminating information.”

Shefali Luthra turns to more immediate concerns in her first book, Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America (Doubleday, May 21). A health care reporter, Luthra travels the country to compose what our critic described as “vivid portrayals of lives disrupted and freedom denied” as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling to reverse Roe v. Wade. 

In a more personal vein is finalist Carvell Wallace’s Another Word for Love: A Memoir (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, May 14). A poet and podcaster, Wallace examines his upbringing as a queer Black American who has come to question, wrote our reviewer, “the indoctrinating grip of traditional masculinity, with its insistence on power and control, interrogating its lessons about fear and intimacy.…Ultimately, this is an intricate and exhilarating memoir—heartbreaking, humbling, and hopeful.”

Rounding out the finalists is another debut memoir, Tessa Hulls’ Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 5). In her artfully imaginative drawings, Hulls embarks on a journey to learn about her grandmother, a Chinese journalist and popular memoirist whose life was forever changed by mental illness—which in turn colored Hulls’ relationship with her mother. Hulls navigates this fraught terrain and says of her family’s ghosts: “They never wanted to devour us. They just wanted to be known. To have their stories heard.” Said our reviewer: “From start to finish, this book is a revelation.”

Please join us for a livestream of the Kirkus Prize ceremony on the Kirkus Reviews YouTube page, Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. ET.

John McMurtrie is the nonfiction editor.