TORONTO - Books about tree planting, autism and chimpanzees are competing for both the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize and the $40,000 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.
The nominees for the B.C. Award were announced last week, while the Taylor long list was released Monday.
Charlotte Gill is up for "Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe"; Joel Yanofsky is in the running for "Bad Animals: A Father's Accidental Education in Autism;" and Andrew Westoll is a contender for "The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery."
This year is the first time the Charles Taylor Prize has released a long list. Eleven titles were selected from 115 submissions and a final short list of contenders will be announced on Jan. 10.
The winner will be crowned on March 5.
The other longlisted books are: "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); "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: Essays" by Madeline Sonik (Anvil Press).
Gill and Gwyn were also nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. That prize was won by Charles Foran's "Mordecai: The Life & Times." Foran's book also won last year's Charles Taylor prize as well as the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
The Taylor runners-up receive $2,000 and additional promotional support.
© The Canadian Press, 2011