Toronto Book Award Nominees Announced

The Toronto Book Award has been around for a while, and in the last 33 years (man, I'm getting old), Toronto has celebrated city-centric classics like Richard B. Wright's In the Middle of a Life (1974), Timothy Findley's The Wars (1978), Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion (1988), and most recently, Dionne Brand's What We All Long For (2006). Quite often, multiple winners are announced- there's just that much fantastic literature coming out of this great city of ours.

This years nominees are... (I've always wanted to say that)
- Sally Gibson for Inside Toronto: Urban Interiors 1880s to 1920s (Cormorant Books Inc.) - a glimpse into the city's society, from the poor to the privileged, at the turn of the last century.
- Geoffrey James for Toronto (Douglas & McIntyre) - a collection of panoramic photos, with an introduction by Mark Kingwell.
- Vincent Lam for Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures (Doubleday Canada) - no surprise here, as this was this year's Giller Prize winner.
- Michael Redhill for Consolation (Doubleday Canada) - a novel about a photographer in Toronto 150 years ago and the ensuing life of the photos he creates. I will definitely be picking this up!
- Raymond Souster for Uptown Downtown (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box) - the first in a trilogy about life in the city as observed from a long time resident.

The winner will be announced at a ceremony on September 5th, 2007. Each finalist will receive $1000, and the one chosen as the best will take home a $10 000 prize purse. That reminds me... I best get my ass in gear and start writing that novel (as if it's that easy)!