Books by Michael Taylor

The arts books publisher chooses a book about Rembrandt’s representation of his own nose, and tells the bigger story is about the way in which Rembrandt renders sense of flesh in his prints and his oil paintings

It’s a nonfiction book prize that values “style, rigour, argument, meatiness, readability, freshness, oddity and individuality,” says Minoo Dinshaw, author of Friends in Youth and one of this year’s judges. He introduces the six brilliant books that made the shortlist of this year’s Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, from the history of post-World War II Italy to the disputes caused by the discovery of dinosaur fossils.