The short list is due tomorrow evening for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. 

  The prize, formerly the Dolman prize — after the Rev William Dolman, a member of the Authors’ Club, who had been sponsoring it through the club since 2006 — was rebranded in 2015 and is now the centre-piece of a scheme run in association with the club by Stanfords, the bookseller, and named after its founder: the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. 

  Short lists for all the awards in the scheme — embracing travel-related cookery books, memoir and fiction with a sense of place — will be announced at the opening of Stanfords’ new shop in Mercer Street in Covent Garden, London. 

    Judging has been curtailed this year. Judges for the Stanford Dolman prize, for example, who in the past have arrived at a short list over several meetings, will be presented with one by Stanfords. I was told there had been about 60 submissions for each category in the awards and that the company was  “using reviewers and booksellers” to whittle them down.