In the Spotlight

Note: Due to an imposition mistake on press, page 14 of this review was incorrectly printed in the January/February issue. (The online and tablet versions were unaffected.) The magazine regrets the error and will include a reprinted version of the review with physical copies of the March 2024 issue.

There is no court of appeal for book prizes. A jury’s decision is final — and not just about who wins. With new members every year, and not much in the way of binding precedent to guide them, juries have a lot of latitude as to what kinds of books their prizes will honour. The Pulitzer Prizes have separate honours for history and biography and non-fiction, and from the lists of finalists it’s not always easy to tell how the juries match the books to the categories. In Canada, jurors for awards like the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the Donner Prize, for best public policy...