American Steve Silberman’s ‘Neurotribes’ win British book prize

By Michael Roddy LONDON (Reuters) - American writer Steve Silberman's book "Neurotribes", about the history of autism and how people and society deal with it, was named the winner on Monday of the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Silberman's is the first work of popular science to win the prestigious British award in its 17-year history and comes at a time of growing public awareness of the neurodevelopmental disorder that affects millions of people around the world, the prize committee said in a statement. Silberman became interested in autism when he wrote a ground-breaking article for Wired magazine in 2001 about the seemingly high incidence of the condition among the children of successful tech couples in Silicon Valley.