From The Guardian:
A scholarly work partly inspired by the film Shakespeare in Love last night beat other highly regarded books to carry off the £30,000 Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize. A dark-horse entry in both the betting and literary stakes, James Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare came from behind to win the award, which is sponsored by BBC4.
Shapiro, who has sold 21,000 copies, defeated the 2/1 favourite, Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories, which has sold 335,000. The influence of Shakespeare in Love is plain in Shapiro’s opening scene, as the bard’s squabbling band of thespians dismantle one theatre and secretively lug the materials across London to the suddenly vacant site of the Globe theatre.
More here.