How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind by Clancy Martin, professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Ashoka University, is a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for nonfiction.

This is the first time a book by a philosophy professor has been selected as a finalist for the $50,000 prize in its 10-year existence.

(Some books about philosophy or philosophers have been finalists before, such as Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Cafe in 2016 and Laura Walls’ Henry David Thoreau: A Life in 2017).

Kirkus describes Professor Martin’s book as “disquieting, deeply felt, eye-opening, and revelatory.”

The other nonfiction finalists this year are Tania Branigan’s Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution, Jennifer Homans’ Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century, Safiya Sinclair’s How To Say Babylon: A Memoir, Héctor Tobar’s Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”, and Ilyon Woo’s Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom.

The winner of this year’s Kirkus awards will be announced at a ceremony in October.

You can read more about this year’s finalists here.