"Read Norman Mailer, Or Win a Charles Taylor..."

FOR WHATEVER REASON, I seem to be part of that great cohort of men who've largely stopped reading fiction, opting for the non-fictive variety of book lately. I don't know why this is -- and in fact, since I got myself one of those nifty Kindle things, no doubt to be supplanted soon by Apple's Jesus Tablet or whatever it's called, I've tried redressing that imbalance by taking on a few new novels.  But the balance is still well and truly tipped.

I'm also one for not taking the whole "prize" thing too literally; prizes in TeeVee are a bit of a joke, you see, and though I get the prestige of the Booker, I chuckle a bit over the fooferal extended to the Giller Awards each year. It seems a lot of gewgaw for this little parish, y'know?

But I got a reminder today of just what purpose literary prizes serve with the announcement of the shortlist for the Taylor Prize, a 25K prize for a Canadian non-fiction book, named after journalist Charles Taylor.

The Boy in the Moon is writer/broadcaster Ian Brown's story of the daily life, and care, for his son, who has a genetic disorder.  I remember reading Brown's columns about his son in the Globe when they first appeared and being transfixed; the book left me no less so -- but my post read behavior did.  I have no idea why, but now that I think about it, I read this book, and it deeply affected me...it's well-written and searing and sad and a whole bunch of other things.  But when I was finished, I put it aside and to the best of my knowledge, I've never discussed it with anybody.

Which is weird. I mean, I read a book, I love a book, I tell everybody. But not Brown's simple, affecting memoir.

So the awards announcement jogged something in me, and now I have a bit of a mystery about myself to solve: why didn't I sing this book's praises?  Luckily, the Taylor Prize has.

As a stubborn believer that Canadian History isn't the boring broth some would have you believe, two of the other books on the list are intriguing titles that have been on my to-read list all year:  Just Watch Me, John English's 2nd volume of Trudeau biography, covering 1968-80, and Daniel Poliquin's Rene Levesque.

So maybe it's time I stopped being so smug about literary prizes like the Taylor Prize.

It gives me a shot at pushing Brown's wonderful book and two others I find compelling. (Actually the whole list sounds pretty good.)

I guess I've just been too well jaded by the Gemini's.

But you know what?

 The Gillers are still silly.  See?

Male anti-fiction bias and all that.

I'm a bad man.