Five titles, representing a diverse range of subjects, have been nominated for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada. The finalists were selected by a jury comprising CBC foreign correspondent Nahlah Ayed, National Post columnist Colby Cosh, and former Member of Parliament Megan Leslie. The winner, who receives $25,000, will be announced at the Politics and the Pen gala in Ottawa on May 10.

The finalists are:

• Kamal Al-Solaylee, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (To Everyone) (HarperCollins Canada)
• Christie Blatchford, Life Sentence: Stories from Four Decades of Court Reporting – Or, How I Fell Out of Love with the Canadian Justice System (Especially Judges) (Doubleday Canada)
• Ian McKay and Jamie Swift, The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War (Between the Lines)
• James McLeod, Turmoil, as Usual: Politics in Newfoundland and Labrador and the Road to the 2015 Election (Creative Publishers)
• Noah Richler, The Candidate: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (Doubleday Canada)