Robyn Doolittle, Ziya Tong among 5 writers shortlisted for $30K RBC Taylor Prize for nonfiction

Robyn Doolittle's Had It Coming, a book about how police handle sexual assault cases, and Ziya Tong's The Reality Bubble, an exploration of what society ignores, are among the titles shortlisted for the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize. 

The $30,000 prize recognizes the best in Canadian literary nonfiction.

The full shortlist is:

• Bush Runner by Mark Bourrie
• Had It Coming by Robyn Doolittle
• Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid
• The Reality Bubble by Ziya Tong
• The Mosquito by Timothy C. Winegard

The jury, comprised of 2019 Booker Prize co-winner Margaret Atwood, British professor Coral Ann Howells and American translator Peter Theroux, selected the 12-book longlist and five-book shortlist from 155 submitted titles.

• Margaret Atwood at 80: A retrospective on her life and career

Atwood revealed the shortlisted books at a press conference in Toronto.

It was announced in November that 2020 will be the last year for the prize, which has been given out since 2000.

Founder Noreen Taylor explained in a press release that "it became clear last year that we had achieved every goal."

Taylor created the prize in memory of her husband, Charles Taylor, a journalist and author of the books Six Journeys and Radical Tories. He died in 1997.

The winner will be revealed on March 2, 2020. 

The winner receives $30,000 and four finalists each receive $5,000.

The prize winner will select an emerging writer to receive the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award. The prize is given to an up-and-coming Canadian writer, who will receive $10,000 and be mentored by the RBC Taylor Prize recipient. 

Last year's winner was Kate Harris for her travel memoir Lands of Lost Borders.

• Kate Harris travelled 10,000 km through 10 countries across the Silk Road, then wrote a book about it

Other past winners include Carol Shields for Jane Austen, Charles Foran for Mordecai: The Life & Times, Andrew Westoll for The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, Thomas King for The Inconvenient Indian, Rosemary Sullivan for Stalin's Daughter and Tanya Talaga for Seven Fallen Feathers.

Keep reading to learn more about the shortlisted books and authors.

Bush Runner by Mark Bourrie

Bush Runner is the story of explorer and Hudson Bay Company founder Pierre-Esprit Radisson. Radisson's life is remarkable: he was kidnapped by Mohawk warriors, witnessed London's great plague and great fire, survived a shipwreck, was marooned with pirates and proved to be a shrewd adventurer, trader and businessperson. 

• Pierre-Esprit Radisson: 'A wilderness hero for our time'

Bourrie is a historian, journalist and university lecturer who has written several books about history. His other books include The Killing Game, a book about ISIS, Fighting Words, about Canadian war reporting, and The Fog of War, about media censorship during the Second World War.

Had It Coming by Robyn Doolittle

Based on the years Globe and Mail reporter Robyn Doolittle spent examining how police mishandle sexual assault cases, Had It Coming is an in-depth look at how attitudes around sexual harassment and assault are changing in the #MeToo era. Doolittle's investigative series Unfounded looked into sexual assault allegations using data gathered from over 870 police forces across the country and found that many cases were deemed "baseless" and not properly investigated.

• Robyn Doolittle: It will take 'rewiring all of us' to change myths about sexual assault victims

Doolittle's previous book, Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, was published in 2014.

Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid

The Highway of Tears is an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia where many Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been murdered. In Highway of Tears, journalist Jessica McDiarmid investigates some of the tragedies that have taken place along this road and explores the larger societal and cultural issues that have led to this crisis.

• Jessica McDiarmid, author of Highway of Tears, on earning the trust of families

McDiarmid is a journalist who has also worked for Journalists for Human Rights. Highway of Tears is her first book.

The Reality Bubble by Ziya Tong

In The Reality Bubble, science journalist Ziya Tong reminds readers that the human eye pales in comparison to what animals with infrared, ultraviolet and 360-degree vision can see. She looks into 10 of humanity's biggest blind spots, including where our food and energy comes from and where our waste goes. 

• Why Ziya Tong wants readers to open their minds and enter The Reality Bubble

Ziya Tong is the vice chair of WWF Canada and is best known as the longtime co-host of the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet, which she anchored for a decade from 2008-2018. The Reality Bubble is her first book.

The Mosquito by Timothy C. Winegard

If you had to choose humanity's greatest natural predator, would you pick sharks? Maybe lions, or bears — or even other humans? According to Timothy Winegard, it's actually that winged terror — the mosquito. In his new book, The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, he argues that the mosquito — and the diseases it carries — has played a remarkable role in shaping our own development, from the birth of the gin and tonic, to the fall of the Roman Empire.

• From the fall of Rome to gin and tonic: How the mosquito 'shaped our history'

Winegard is a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University. He has written four books covering a variety of topics, including military history, Indigenous studies and now, mosquitoes.