Profile Books is a British independent book publishing firm founded in 1996. It publishes

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

subjects including history, biography,

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

, politics, current affairs, travel and

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

. Profile Books is distributed in the UK by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

and sold by

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

, and is part of the Independent Alliance.

History

In 2002 the company acquired the HarperCollins UK business list. The list now includes works by Robert Greene,

Ryan Holiday Ryan Holiday (born June 16, 1987) is an American author, originally a marketer, who made a name writing books and marketing them in non-traditional ways. Holiday's debut to writing was in 2012, when he published ''Trust Me, I'm Lying''. Since ...

, and

Shoshana Zuboff Shoshana Zuboff (born November 18, 1951) is an American author, professor, social psychologist, philosopher, and scholar. Zuboff is the author of the books ''In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power'' and ''The Support Econ ...

. In 2003 the company published ''

Eats, Shoots & Leaves ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation'' is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss, the former host of BBC Radio 4's '' Cutting a Dash'' programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punc ...

'' by

Lynne Truss Lynne Truss (born 31 May 1955) is an English author, journalist, novelist, and radio broadcaster and dramatist. She champions correctness and aesthetics in the English language, which is the subject of her 2003 book, '' Eats, Shoots & Leaves: ...

which was the bestselling

title for 30 weeks and the Book of the Year at the

British Book Awards The British Book Awards or Nibbies are literary awards for the best UK writers and their works, administered by ''The Bookseller''. The awards have had several previous names, owners and sponsors since being launched in 1990, including the Na ...

2004, at which the company also won the Small Publisher of the Year award. In January 2007 Profile Books acquired Serpent's Tail, bringing together two small publishers in London. In 2008 Profile set up an ethical imprint GreenProfile under the direction of Mark Ellingham, the founder of Rough Guides. In 2012, Profile launched a new list with Wellcome Collection, designed to showcase writing about medicine, the body, and the human condition. Authors on the list include

Val McDermid Valarie McDermid (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and his collaborators in the police department. Her work is considered to be part of a sub-genre k ...

Atul Gawande Atul Atmaram Gawande (born November 5, 1965) is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professor in the Department ...

and

Gavin Francis Gavin Francis (born 1975) is a Scottish physician and a writer on travel and medical matters. He was raised in Fife, Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh as a GP. Biography Born in Fife in 1975, Francis studied medicine at the University of Edi ...

. In October 2012 Profile acquired Birmingham-based independent Tindal Street Press. Since 2014 Profile has published a boutique list of Tuskar Rock, editorially selected by

Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín ( , ; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. His first novel, ''The South (novel), The South'', was published in 1990. ''The Blackwater Lightship'' was short ...

and Peter Straus, which includes works by

László Krasznahorkai László Krasznahorkai (; born 5 January 1954) is a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter known for difficult and demanding novels, often labeled postmodern, with dystopian and melancholic themes. Several of his works, including his novels '' Sat ...

and

Chris Kraus (American writer) Chris Kraus (born 1955) is an American-born writer, critic, editor, filmmaker, performance artist, and educator. Her work includes the novels ''I Love Dick'', ''Aliens and Anorexia'', and ''Torpor'', which form a loose trilogy that navigates betwe ...

. In 2017 the first books were published in the new Pursuit Books imprint, a list showcasing writing on cycling.

Notable publications

Authors include

Anjana Ahuja Anjana Ahuja ( अंजना आहूजा ) is a British science journalist and a former columnist for ''The Times''. She is now a contributing writer at the ''Financial Times''. She also contributes to ''The Daily Telegraph'', '' Prospect' ...

Alan Bennett Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. He has received numerous awards and honours including four BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. In 2005 he received the Socie ...

Susan Hill Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill, Lady Wells (born 5 February 1942) is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include '' The Woman in Black'', which has been adapted for stage and screen, '' The Mist in the Mirror'', and '' ...

Ian Stewart (mathematician) Ian Nicholas Stewart (born 24 September 1945) is a British mathematician and a popular-science and science-fiction writer. He is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, England. Education and early life Stewart was ...

, Jonathan Dimbleby,

Sandi Toksvig Sandra Birgitte Toksvig (; ; born 3 May 1958) is a Danish-British broadcaster, comedian, presenter and writer on British radio, stage and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015. She ha ...

, Simon Garfield, Robert Greene,

Richard Mabey Richard Thomas Mabey (born 20 February 1941) is a writer and broadcaster, chiefly on the relations between nature and culture. Education Mabey was educated at three independent schools, all in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. The first was at Roth ...

Simon Jenkins Sir Simon David Jenkins FLSW (born 10 June 1943) is a British author, a newspaper columnist and editor. He was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' from 1976 to 1978 and of ''The Times'' from 1990 to 1992. Jenkins chaired the National Trust f ...

Margaret MacMillan Margaret Olwen MacMillan (born 23 December 1943) is a Canadian historian and professor at the University of Oxford. She is former provost of Trinity College, Toronto, and professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryers ...

, David Harvey, Federico Varese and Francesca Simon. The company publishes all of

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

books. Robert Greene *'' The 48 Laws of Power'' (2000) *'' Mastery'' (2012) *''The Laws of Human Nature'' (2018) Timothy Brook *'' Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World'' (2009)

Richard Wrangham Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is an English anthropologist and primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking. ...

*'' Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human'' (2009) *''The Goodness Paradox'' (2019) Simon Garfield *'' Just My Type'' (2010)

*'' The Man in the Picture'' (2007) *'' The Small Hand'' (2010) *''Howards End is on the Landing'' (2010) *'' Dolly: A Ghost Story'' (2012) *''Printer's Devil Court'' (2014) *''The Travelling Bag'' (2016)

Tracy Kidder John Tracy Kidder (born November 12, 1945) is an American writer of nonfiction books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his '' The Soul of a New Machine'' (1981), about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation. He has recei ...

*'' Mountains Beyond Mountains'' (2011) Jay Bahadur *'' Deadly Waters'' (2011) Patricia and Robert Malcolmson, Nella Last *'' Nella Last in the 1950s'' (2010) James A Robinson, Daron Acemoğlu *'' Why Nations Fail'' (2013)

*''The Lady in the Van'' (1999) *''Four Stories'' (2006) *'' The Uncommon Reader (2007) *''A Life Like Other People's'' (2009) *''Smut'' (2011) *''Keeping On Keeping On'' 2017

*''A Short History of England'' (2011) *''England's 100 Best Views'' (2013) Jonathan Dimbleby *''Destiny in the Desert'' (2012) David Harvey *''The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism'' (2011) *''Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism'' (2014) James Ward *'' Adventures in Stationery'' (2014)

*''Being Mortal'' Shaun Bythell (of Wigtown bookshop) *''The Diary of a Bookseller'' Eugenia Cheng *''How to Bake Pi'' *''Beyond Infinity''

Prizes

*''Anquetil, Alone'' by Paul Fournel was shortlisted in two categories in the Sports Book Awards 2018 *''Being Mortal'' by

was longlisted for the

Baillie Gifford Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its ...

2014 * '' Catching Fire'' was shortlisted for the

Samuel Johnson Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its m ...

in 2010 * ''

'' was Book of the Year at

Specsavers National Book Awards The British Book Awards or Nibbies are literary awards for the best UK writers and their works, administered by ''The Bookseller''. The awards have had several previous names, owners and sponsors since being launched in 1990, including the Na ...

2004 *''Frugal Innovation'' by Navi Radjou and Jaideep Prabhu won the CMI Management Book of the Year Award 2016 * '' Just My Type'' won Best British Book at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2011 *''Moneyland'' by Oliver Bullough was ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' Business Book of the Year 2018 * '' Mountains Beyond Mountains'' won a BMA Medical Book Award * '' Nella Last in the 1950s'' was shortlisted for the Portico Prize in 2012 *''Railways'' was ''The Sunday Times'' History Book of the Year 2015 * '' The Small Hand'' won a Best Jacket / Cover Design award at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2011 * '' Vermeer's Hat'' won the Mark Lynton History Prize in 2009 * '' Why Nations Fail'' won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2012 Profile Books has won the "Independent Publisher of the Year" awards three times. In 2017 '' The Essex Serpent'' (published in the Serpent's Tail imprint) was named the Fiction Book of the Year, the Book of the Year, and won Publicity Campaign of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.

References

External links

*
Profile Books on FacebookProfile Books on TwitterSerpent's Tail website
{{Authority control Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Publishing companies established in 1996