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Eating Dirt shortlisted for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction
Vancouver, BC - January 10, 2012. Greystone Books is delighted to announce that Charlotte Gill's Eating Dirt (Greystone Books in association with the David Suzuki Foundation, Cloth ISBN 978-1-55365-977-8, Ebook ISBN 978-1-55365-793-4, $29.95) has been shortlisted for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.
Jurors Stevie Cameron and Susan Renouf made the announcement on behalf of the three-person jury (which also includes Allan M. Brandt) and read the citation they wrote about Charlotte Gill's book:
"Only a writer as skilled as Charlotte Gill could make the back-breaking work of planting more than a million seedlings sound like one of life's essential adventures. In a carefully balanced story of science, business and friendship, and one that is surprisingly unsentimental, Gill shares her love for Canada's boreal forests, the tragedy of their disappearances and the grueling work involved in replacing them. Reader, you might finish this book feeling relieved you don't plant trees -- but you will be wishing you could.";
The other four finalists announced by the prize jurors are: Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada; JJ Lee, author of The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit, published by McClelland & Stewart; Madeline Sonik, author of Afflictions & Departures: Essays, published by Anvil Press; and Andrew Westoll, author of The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery, published by HarperCollins Publishers. The prize consists of $25,000 for the winner and $2,000 for each of the runners up. The winning book will be announced on Monday, March 5th 2012.
About Eating Dirt: Charlotte Gill offers up a slice of tree-planting life in all of its soggy, gritty exuberance, while questioning the ability of conifer plantations to replace original forests that evolved over millennia into complex ecosystems. She looks at logging's environmental impact and its boom-and-bust history, and touches on the versatility of wood, from which we have devised countless creations as diverse as textiles and airplane parts.
Eating Dirt also eloquently evokes the wonder of trees, which grow from a tiny seed into one of the world's largest organisms, our slowest-growing "renewable"; resource. Most of all, the book joyously celebrates the priceless value of forests and the ancient, ever-changing relationship between humans and trees.
Jurors Stevie Cameron and Susan Renouf made the announcement on behalf of the three-person jury (which also includes Allan M. Brandt) and read the citation they wrote about Charlotte Gill's book:
"Only a writer as skilled as Charlotte Gill could make the back-breaking work of planting more than a million seedlings sound like one of life's essential adventures. In a carefully balanced story of science, business and friendship, and one that is surprisingly unsentimental, Gill shares her love for Canada's boreal forests, the tragedy of their disappearances and the grueling work involved in replacing them. Reader, you might finish this book feeling relieved you don't plant trees -- but you will be wishing you could.";
The other four finalists announced by the prize jurors are: Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada; JJ Lee, author of The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit, published by McClelland & Stewart; Madeline Sonik, author of Afflictions & Departures: Essays, published by Anvil Press; and Andrew Westoll, author of The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery, published by HarperCollins Publishers. The prize consists of $25,000 for the winner and $2,000 for each of the runners up. The winning book will be announced on Monday, March 5th 2012.
About Eating Dirt: Charlotte Gill offers up a slice of tree-planting life in all of its soggy, gritty exuberance, while questioning the ability of conifer plantations to replace original forests that evolved over millennia into complex ecosystems. She looks at logging's environmental impact and its boom-and-bust history, and touches on the versatility of wood, from which we have devised countless creations as diverse as textiles and airplane parts.
Eating Dirt also eloquently evokes the wonder of trees, which grow from a tiny seed into one of the world's largest organisms, our slowest-growing "renewable"; resource. Most of all, the book joyously celebrates the priceless value of forests and the ancient, ever-changing relationship between humans and trees.
Submitted on January 11, 2012 in By David.
