... the shortlist for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction also came out this morning.
Quill & Quire reports the nominees are (with links to Q&Q reviews):
Kevin Bazzana’s Lost Genius: The Story of a Forgotten Musical Maverick (McClelland & Stewart), about the seriously odd musical prodigy Ervin Nyiregyházi.
David Gilmour’s The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son (Thomas Allen Publishers);
Lorna Goodison’s From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People (M&S), a memoir of a mixed-race childhood that is also on the BC Book Prize shortlist;
Richard Gwyn’s John A.: The Man Who Made Us: The Life and Times of John A. Macdonald, Volume One: 1815-1867 (Random House Canada);
and Anna Porter’s Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of Rezsö Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust (Douglas & McIntyre).
A pretty good list, I think. Three histories and two memoirs, you could say. Gilmour's might be my sentimental favourite, though he's the only one who could be called a novelist dabbling in non-fiction. (Goodison is a poet.) Jurors: Charlotte Gray, J.B. Mackinnon, and John Manley.
