Dolman Award shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2012 Dolman Best Travel Book Award - one of the most prestigious travel prizes in the UK and the only one open to any writer - has been announced, with six titles in contention to win.

These include Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge by John Gimlette, which recalls his travels in the jungles of Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana and his encounters with villagers, deadly creatures and the Amazon River itself.

He is up against Julia Blackburn's Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain Village, which follows the author and her husband as they traverse northern Italy and was shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Biography Award, as well as the 2012 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize.

To a Mountain in Tibet, detailing Colin Thubron's journey to Mount Kailas after deaths in his family left him the only surviving member, is also nominated, alongside Olivia Laing's debut book To The River, which charts the course of the River Ouse from the Sussex Downs to the coast.

The shortlist is completed by White Fever: A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia, by Jacek Hugo-Bader, which sees the author drive from Moscow to Vladivostok, encountering homelessness and hopelessness on the way, and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts' Harlem is Nowhere, an account of her time in the New York borough.

The Dolman Best Travel Book Award is one of two major UK travel book prizes, alongside the British Guild of Travel Writers Award. However, the latter is only open to members of the Guild and so the Dolman presents many authors with their only chance of scooping a major travel book award.

The winner of the Dolman Award, which carries a GBP 2,500 prize, will be announced on September 5th.