RBC Taylor Prize Longlist Announced

After a fiction-focused fall prize season, the focus is back on non-fiction with the announcement of the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize longlist.Notably, included on the list are two of the Weston Prize finalists - winner James Maskalyk and shortlisted writer Tanya Talaga. Apart from those two titles, there is no further overlap between the lists for the two biggest non-fiction prizes in the country. Penguin Random House scooped half of the ten longlist spots across their imprints, with independents presses Douglas & McIntyre, House of Anansi Press, Wolsak & Wynn, and Goose Lane (along with multinational Simon & Schuster) each boasting one title on the list. 

2018 RBC Taylor Prize Longlist:

• Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska by Stephen R. Bown (Douglas & McIntyre)
• How to Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron (Simon & Schuster)
• Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place by Daniel Coleman (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers)
• The Marriott Cell: An Epic Journey from Cairo’s Scorpion Prison to Freedom by Mohamed Fahmy and Carol Shaben (Random House Canada)
• Solitude: A Singular Life in a Crowded World by Michael Harris (Doubleday Canada)
• Life on the Ground Floor: Letters From the Edge of Emergency Medicine by James Maskalyk (Doubleday Canada)
• A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land by Adam Shoalts (Allen Lane Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City, by Tanya Talaga (House of Anansi Press)
• In the Name of Humanity by Max Wallace (Allen Lane Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Apron Strings: Navigating Food and Family in France, Italy, and China by Jan Wong (Goose Lane Editions)

The RBC Taylor Prize will be presented Monday, February 26, 2018, where the winner will take home both the prestige of the award and the $30,000 prize purse. Each finalist is awarded $5,000.This year's jury is comprised of Christine Elliott, Anne Giardini, and James Polk, who read 153 books submitted by 110 publishers.