Tonight will see the announcement of the winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction at an awards ceremony in the swanksome surroundings of the Savoy hotel. Despite the prize's relative youth – tonight takes it into its seventh year – it is hotly contested and most definitely one to watch: previous winners of the £30,000 jackpot have included Antony Beevor for Stalingrad and last year Anna Funder for Stasiland, her captivating account of life behind the Berlin Wall.

This year the judges have upped the stakes with one of the strongest shortlists the prize has ever fielded. Of the six books to have made it to the final round, the ones to watch are Alexander Masters' life-in-reverse of homeless man Stuart Shorter, Stuart: A Life Backwards, which received buckets of press coverage on its publication, Orham Pamuk's musical biography of his home city, Istanbul, and Jonathan Coe's life of BS Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant, which is generally held by everyone who has read it to be wonderful. We'll bring you the result as soon as we have it …