Charles Taylor Prize reveals first ever longlist

Since it was launched in 2000, the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction has traditionally been among the first major literary prizes celebrated in the new year.

Now, for the first time, organizers have revealed a longlist of titles under consideration, citing both “the large number of publishers’ submissions that are received each year” and “the opportunity to promote the best of these books in the all-important Christmas bookselling season.”

Selected from 115 submissions by a jury comprising Allan M. Brandt, Stevie Cameron, and Susan Renouf, the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize longlist is as follows:

• Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre (Douglas & McIntyre)

• Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis (Knopf Canada)

• The Patrol: Seven Days in the Life of a Canadian Soldier in Afghanistan by Ryan Flavelle (HarperCollins Canada)

• Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill (Greystone Books)

• Nation Maker: Sir John A. MacDonald: His Life, Our Times Volume Two: 1867–1891 by Richard Gwyn (Random House Canada)

• The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit by J. J. Lee (McClelland & Stewart)

• Facing the Hunter: Reflections on a Misunderstood Way of Life by David Adams Richards (Doubleday Canada)

• Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live by Ray Robertson (Biblioasis)

• Afflictions and Departures by Madeline Sonik (Anvil Press)

• The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery by Andrew Westoll (HarperCollins Canada)

• Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism by Joel Yanofsky (Viking Canada)

For those keeping count, D&M Publishers, Random House of Canada, and HarperCollins Canada all have multiple nominations. Six of the 11 longlisted titles also appeared on the longlist for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-fiction, which announced its shortlist last week.

The Charles Taylor Prize shortlist will be revealed Jan. 10, with the winner, who receives $25,000, being announced March 5.

Ray Robertson on baiting the Giller

Writing in the National Post books blog, novelist Ray Robertson says that while Alice Munro may have to forcibly remove her work from Scotiabank Giller Prize consideration, he doesn’t even bother with the formality – he just writes the kind of gritty, contemporary novels that offend the priggish literary sensibilities of the established “culture industry.”

There’s inevitably been some point during the writing of every one of my six novels when I knew that I was unofficially but no less effectively disqualified for Giller Prize consideration.

Some point, in other words, when I knew that the tender sensibilities of that year’s distinguished arbiters of taste would no doubt be chafed by some damning reference of mine to either bodily functions (because we all know that people in works of literature don’t go to the bathroom) or popular culture (because we all know that people in works of literature spend the majority of their time occupied not with jobs and families and television and boredom, but with either travelling to remote countries looking for lost lovers or distant family members or else sitting in abandoned lighthouses alternately listening to the mournful sounds of the sea and brooding upon those timeless day-to-day concerns of time, loss, and memory) or for simply failing to set said novel in a sufficiently charmingly bucolic and/or fascinatingly exotic locale (because we all know that real literature doesn’t take place where most people actually live and work and go to the mall and die).

Certainly, there’s room to criticize and debate this year’s Giller shortlist, but Robertson’s embattled tone seems a little self-serving. Consider, for instance, that while historical novels are generally well-represented on the Giller shortlist, the odd gritty, urban novel does occasionally slip past the censors – think Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game or Cockroach. And never mind that Robertson’s latest novel, David, is in fact an historical novel set in the Elgin Settlement, near Chatham, Ontario. Presumably, there are enough references to bodily functions to have effectively disqualified it from consideration.

Event photo: Coady, Robertson, and Babstock in Prague

You may think, looking at the photo below, that this is a shot of two unsuspecting tourists about to be fleeced by a suspicious-looking con man. But in fact it is authors Lynn Coady, Ray Robertson, and Ken Babstock in Prague. All three authors were in the Czech Republic to participate in the Month of Authors Reading Festival, which took place in the town of Brno in late July. The focus this year was on Canadian writers. Joining the three below were such authors as Michael Crummey, Madeleine Thien, Thomas Wharton, Eden Robinson, Louise Desjardins, and Sheila Heti. (Photo courtesy of Ray Robertson)

Screaming the summer away

A reminder to Toronto readers that this year’s Scream Literary Festival is now in full swing. It culminates with a dozen authors reading at High Park on July 14 (with a lineup that includes What Happened Later author Ray Robertson and Stunt author Claudia Dey), and there are smaller readings and receptions along the way. The full lineup is here.

Kerouacapalooza at the Gladstone Hotel

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s seminal On The Road – as well as launch a pair of Kerouac-themed books – Toronto’s This Is Not a Reading Series held a “Kerouac Legacy Party” at the Gladstone Hotel on Sept. 5.

Ian Brown inspects author Ray Robertson’s muttonchops. Robertson was launching his new novel, What Happened Later (Thomas Allen Publishers).

Publicist Debby de Groot fears losing her soul in the camera’s flash. Author Stephen Finucan, on the other hand, appears to welcome it.

David Creighton (right), who was launching his book Ecstasy of the Beats (Dundurn Press), makes a point as Robertson and host Jian Ghomeshi listen.

Dundurn design and production assistant Erin Mallory, owner Kirk Howard, and new sales and marketing director Margaret Bryant.

House of Anansi’s Laura Repas with her copy of Robertson’s book.

Local chef Sacha Gatien Douglas hoists one for Kerouac with Catherine MacGregor of HarperCollins Canada.

Novelist Michael Helm and his wife, Juanita Des Barros. (Note designer Bill Douglas going postal in the background.)

Poets Ken Babstock and Karen Solie.

Ghomeshi gets cozy with Thomas Allen publisher Patrick Crean and publicity manager Lisa Zaritzky.

Robertson in a publicity sandwich between Thomas Allen’s Laura Palumbo and Larissa Chalmers. (Warning: staring directly at the pattern on Robertson’s shirt may cause dizziness and/or nausea – though it seems to have had a calming effect on Bill Douglas…)

Alicia Hogan, Thomas Allen senior editor Janice Zawerbny, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Shirley Hudson, and author Paul Quarrington.

BOOKED! lineup made public

Today Reed Exhibitions posted some much-awaited details on BOOKED!, the author festival that’s running just before the BookExpo Canada convention and trade show next month. The most notable event is a gala tribute to horror giant Stephen King on Friday, June 8 (which is also happening under the Luminato banner); according to the website, King will, incredibly, make his first public appearance in Canada to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Booksellers Association.

Things kick off on Thursday, June 7, with a “men of letters” panel featuring Barry Callaghan, David Gilmour, Stephen Henighan, and Ray Robertson. Friday will see a full day of children’s programming, featuring such authors as Barbara Haworth-Attard, Carol Matas, Martha Brooks, Deborah Ellis, Susan Juby, and Kit Pearson. On the Saturday evening, Christopher Hitchens, Naomi Klein, Daniel Levitin, and Linda McQuaig will convene for a panel discussion.

And it appears that at least two BookExpo Canada events, Saturday’s author breakfast and lunch, will be open to the public. Admission to the former (featuring Gail Anderson-Dargatz and Lesley Choyce) is listed as $35 and the latter (featuring Elizabeth Hay, Frances Itani, and Richard B. Wright) as $50.

The full events listing can be seen here and the full author list here. Watch for more coverage on Q&Q Omni later this week.

UPDATE: The BOOKED people now say that the lineups were posted as a “test” and have since been taken down (as you’ll see if you click on the no-longer-active links above). Watch for the official announcement later this month.