The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction has announced the 11 finalists on its first ever longlist. Prize founder Noreen Taylor commented on the decision to release a longlist in a statement: “Last year, at our 10th anniversary, the jury informed us that there were so many additional titles so close to being named to the shortlist that we realized it was time.”

The books still in contention for the prize are Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter by Carmen Aguirre, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis, The Patrol: Seven Days in the Life of a Canadian Soldier in Afghanistan by Ryan Flavelle, Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill, Nation Maker: Sir John A. MacDonald: His Life, Our Times Volume Two: 1867 – 1891 by Richard Gwyn, The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit by J. J. Lee, Facing the Hunter: Reflections on a Misunderstood Way of Life by David Adams Richards, Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live by Ray Robertson, Afflictions and Departures: Essays by Madeline Sonik, The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery by Andrew Westoll, and Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism by Joel Yanofsky.

The Charles Taylor Prize is awarded annually to an author whose book “best combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception.” The shortlist will be announced January 10, 2012, and the winner March 5, 2012.