MacMillan, King make long list for lucrative $40,000 B.C. non-fiction prize

VANCOUVER – Novelist Thomas King and historian Margaret MacMillan are among the authors who have been longlisted for the lucrative $40,000 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

Ten books were selected from 141 nominated books submitted by 46 publishers.

King is in the running for “The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America” (Doubleday Canada) while MacMillan is up for “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914” (Penguin Canada).

Rounding out the long list are:

“The Juggler’s Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us” by Carolyn Abraham (Random House of Canada);

“Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life” by James Daschuk (University of Regina Press);

“Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace” by Ronald J. Deibert (McClelland & Stewart);

“The Book of Immortality: The Science, Belief, and Magic Behind Living Forever” by Adam Leith Gollner (Doubleday Canada);

“The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master, and the Trial that Shocked a Country” by Charlotte Gray (HarperCollins Canada);

“Nocturne: On the Life and Death of My Brother” by Helen Humphreys (HarperCollins Canada);

“The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be” by J.B. MacKinnon (Random House of Canada);

“The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan” by Graeme Smith (Knopf Canada).

The short list will be announced Dec. 11 with the winner to be unveiled early next year.

The jury is made up of Globe and Mail books editor Jared Bland, Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham and award-winning novelist Anna Porter.

Previous winners of the prize include Ian Brown and Noah Richler. The prize was founded in 2003 and funded by the British Columbia government.