Genome race and climate change vision vie for science book prize

There's a first-hand account of the race to sequence the human genome; a pessimistic tour around the world's coral reefs that takes in Captain Cook, Gauguin and Darwin; and an apocalyptic vision of a post-global warming world.

These are three of the six books which beat off competition from the likes of Steven Pinker to make the shortlist for this year's Royal Society science book prizes. The winner will be announced on June 16.

A list of previous winners of the prestigious literary gong reads like a who's who of science book publishing. Bill Bryson, Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Steven Jay Gould, Philip Ball and Jared Diamond (twice) have all carried off the £10,000 award. And the prize has even courted political controversy. The 2006 winner David Bodanis donated his winnings to the family of David Kelly, the government scientist who committed suicide over the government's handling of the Iraq invasion. He wanted to highlight Kelly's integrity and the "importance of truth".

There is no sign yet of such controversy this year, but the shortlist includes some big names. No stranger to the Royal Society's accolade is the geneticist Steve Jones who won the prize in 1994 with The Language of Genes. This time around it is his book Coral which caught the judges' eye, which they described as a "wonderful, thought provoking, ramble through science and evolutionary history".

Another hot favourite must be Craig Venter's autobiography A Life Decoded, which tells his side of the race to sequence the human genome. His opponents in the publicly funded team are doubtless spitting teeth at his version of events, but it is a gripping tale of the political manoeuvrings behind the most significant scientific event of the decade. Oh yes, and there is the rock star scientist's account of his battle with a sea snake that - had it gone the other way - would have made for a much shorter book.

The author Ffion Hague was a member of the judging panel given the unenviable task of wading through the full list of entries. "We were given a huge big cardboard box of 94 books," she told the Guardian's Science Weekly podcast.

Having studied English at Oxford and medieval Welsh poetry at Aberystwyth Hague said she was drafted in as a representative of the lay reader. "They wanted somebody on the panel who didn't come from a scientific background. I can tell you I really fulfilled that criterion."

She said the secret of a good science book is not very different from good writing generally. "[It] needs to have a really riveting message," she said, "It needs to have a good structure and a good compelling presentation and then it needs to be written in a style that's accessible... to people who are not scientifically trained."

Alongside the general winner, the Royal Society will also reward science writing for children with its Junior Prize. The TV presenter and fertility specialist Robert Winston is in the running for this with his chemistry book It's Elementary!

General prize shortlistA life decoded J Craig Venter (Penguin, Allen Lane)Coral : A pessimist in paradise Steve Jones (Little, Brown)Gut feelings Gerd Gigerenzer (Penguin, Allen Lane)Six degrees: Our future on a hotter planet Mark Lynas (Fourth Estate)The sun kings Stuart Clark (Princeton University Press)Why beauty is truth Ian Stewart (Basic Books)

Junior prize shortlistAsk Dr K Fisher about animals Claire Llewellyn, (Kingfisher Publications)How the incredible human body works the Brainwaves, written by Richard Walker, illustrated by Ralph Lazar and Lisa Swerling (Dorling Kindersley)It's elementary! Robert Winston (Dorling Kindersley) Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other Essential Tips for Explorers Marshall Corwin (Collins)The big book of science things to make and do Rebecca Gilpin and Leonie Pratt (Usborne)Why is snot green? Glenn Murphy (Macmillan)