The Baillie Gifford prize is the UK’s most prestigious award for nonfiction writing. This year’s shortlist contains works of history, true crime, memoir and biography.

Here are the six titles on the 2019 shortlist:

• Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
• On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming
• The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth by William Feaver
• Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovel
• Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni
• The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

Stig Abell, editor of the Times Literary Supplement and chair of judges, said: ‘I think we’ve ended up with a shortlist full of brilliance and verve, huge scope and evocative detail. I urge everyone to get reading these books. They will not be disappointed. The winner, when it emerges, will have beaten some magnificent competition.’

The 2019 winner will be revealed on 19 November. Find out more about this year’s shortlist and the Prize itself here.