Royal Society 1988 Shortlist

1. Living with Risk by the British Medical Association Board of Science (Winner)
2. Thinking Machines by Igor Aleksander and Piers Burnett
3. Molecules by Peter Atkins
4. Egg by Robert Burton
5. The Omega Point by John Gribbin
6. The Quantum Universe by Tony Hey and Patrick Walters

Royal Society 1989 Shortlist

1. Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human Origins by Roger Lewin (Winner)
2. End: Cosmic Catastrophe and the Fate of the Universe by Frank Close
3. Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick
4. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
5. The Crumbs of Contention by John Lenihan

Royal Society 1990 Shortlist

1. The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics by Roger Penrose (Winner)
2. Time Reversal by Anatole Abragam
3. Evolution: The Great Debate by Vernon Blackmore and Andrew Page
4. The Mind Machine by Colin Blakemore
5. The New Physics edited by Paul Davies
6. Senses and Sensibilities by Jillyn Smith

Royal Society 1991 Shortlist

1. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould 
2. The Trials of Life by David Attenborough
3. Genome by Jerry Bishop and Michael Waldholz
4. Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler
5. The Stuff of the Universe by John Gribbin and Martin Rees
6. Global Warming by Stephen H. Schneider

Royal Society 1992 Shortlist

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond (Winner)
2. Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
3. Dawn of a Millennium by Erich Earth
4. Fossils by Niles Eldredge
5. The Natural History of the Universe by Colin Ronan
6. Last Animals at the Zoo by Colin Tudge

Royal Society 1993 Shortlist

1. The Making of Memory by Steven Rose (Winner)
2. Insects in Flight by John Brackenbury
3. The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World by Paul Davies
4. The Malaria Capers: More Tales of Parasites and People, Research and Reality by Robert S. Desowitz
5. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
6. Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality by Benjamin Woolley

Royal Society 1994 Shortlist

1. The Language of the Genes by Steve Jones
2. The Neandertals: Of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandal by Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman
3. The Engineer in the Garden: Genes and Genetics by Colin Tudge
4. Dreams of a Final Theory by Steven Weinberg
5. The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson
6. The Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind by Steven Rose