It's Canada Reads Longlist Day, and despite (because of?) everything else being terrible, I'm gonna go ahead and warm up this ol' corpse of mine and talk about book prizes in Canada! THREAD!

First of all, here's the longlist: https://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/here-is-the-canada-reads-2021-longlist-1.5860927

Longlists are fun because they're LUSH and FULL. It's an easy way for prizes to diversify without actually diversifying. A diverse longlist is normal — more POC, more graphic novels, poetry, hybrids, more small presses. But these often get cut when it comes to the shortlist.

But my own cynicism aside, the Canada Reads longlists are DIVERSE. Every year it makes me excited for the shortlist. (And every year the shortlist disappoints me in some way but that's another tweet thread for later, as a treat). But let's talk about longlist diversity!

SOME NUMBERS:
- 15 books longlisted
- 9 small press books
- 5 novels from poets
- 4 ex-Giller books
- 4 Indigenous authors
- 4 POC authors
- 3 memoirs
- 2 translations from the French
- 2 fantasy novels
- 2 novels set in Montreal
- 1 graphic narrative
#canadareads

The biggest number there is small press, so let's talk about that for a second. I was excited to see so many small presses… but then realized it's the same ratio (9/15) as last year. You know how many made it to the shortlist last year? Two. Again: diverse, but not diverse.

I imagine it's a difficult balance; book prizes (incl. Canada Reads) want to support indie publishers, but as The Sentimentalists proved with the Giller in 2010, small presses are less able to meet demand for nominated books. This can be catastrophic for book prizes...

… because BOOK SALES is one of the biggest metrics, if not THE biggest metric, that book prizes can use to evaluate their success. It's harder to know how many people are engaging with the prize generally, but sales… well, money always talks, doesn't it?

It's hard to look at the increasingly capitalist/consumerist frameworks around literary prizes and NOT see this as a factor in shortlisting/not shortlisting small press books. I wouldn't be shocked if we only saw one small press book again on the 2021 shortlist. #canadareads

Next: Indigenous authors. Shamefully, and ridiculously, an Indigenous author has NEVER won Canada Reads. Last year four were longlisted and two were shortlisted, which is pretty good follow-through. Four are longlisted this year, too. Let's see if it happens again. #canadareads

This might be a good place to note that I have long dreamt of an ALL-INDIGENOUS year of Canada Reads. Imagine! @cbcbooks, you don't even have to pay me for this idea. Just take it! Make it happen! #CanadaReads #IndigenousReads

NEXT, this isn't something I usually track, but it jumped out at me this year: FIVE novels from poets. Five! Canada Reads is generally pretty nervous re: including poetry, so this is an interesting shift. Audiences might not be interested in poetry… but how about poetic novels?

I'm honestly very interested to see how this goes. By the numbers, there's a good chance at least one will be shortlisted. But how will it be received in the competition?Especially since Canada Reads jurors are typically less confident talking about STRUCTURAL parts of a book?

There's always a "jock" or "cowboy" sort of figure on the jury (not yet announced for 2021), so I'm willing to bet GOOD MONEY that SOMEONE on this judging panel will say something like I DIDN'T GET IT, I LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE JUST COME OUT AND SAY A THING, YOU KNOW?

NEXT, there are four ex- @GillerPrize books, which is deeply unsurprising. These are books that have already been pushed towards mainstream readers and seen some marketplace success. They're basically pre-vetted: audiences respond well to them because they're familiar to many.

And this is just the Giller — many others on this list (both books and authors) have won other awards. Any award operates to raise the profile of a book/author; it's just that the Giller is the most mainstream one in Canada (other than, arguably, Canada Reads).

NEXT. There are always a couple translated from the French which is a staple inclusion. If one of them makes the shortlist, it's a pretty good bet that it's because we'll be getting a Quebecois jury member. And honestly Canada should be reading more Quebecois lit, so I'm in.

Interestingly, two French books are on this list (Tatouine, Autopsy of a Boring Wife) but also two books set in Montreal (Dirty Birds, Lonely Hearts Hotel). Interested to see if this is a kind of bait and switch — we won't get a translated book, but rather one set in Quebec?

NEXT. Two fantasy novels! Plus one (Tatouine) set partially in a dream of another planet (which sounds more poetic than it does sci-fi), plus The Lonely Hearts Hotel which is sheer and pure magic realism (so… also fantasy. In a way.)

Interested to see how this pans out; Cory Doctorow's RADICALIZED was the "genre" offering of last year's shortlist, and LET ME TELL YOU it was NOT well received. (More because of misogyny than the scifi genre itself, but it did badly. I guarantee the CBC remembers). #canadareads

I'm excited to see HENCH on this list because I love love LOVE alternate-superhero narratives and this one — about an administrator who uses DATA to take down a superhero who wronged her — is ONE HUNDRED per cent my jam. #canadareads

LASTLY: There's one graphic novel (Wendy, Master of Art) on the longlist, which is NEAT. We saw one on the longlist last year, too, which marked the first time since 2011 that one was nominated. That one didn't make the shortlist. Maybe this one will?

If this was interesting, here's a piece I wrote about the Canada Reads longlist in 2020 for @ShrapnelLitMag, which goes into more detail about some of the things I'll talk about in this thread. You know, if you're interested! https://www.shrapnelmagazine.com/essays/canada-reads-longlist-performs-diversity-but-does-the-shortlist-deliver

And finally, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PRIZES ARE ALSO JUST INSISTENT FORMS OF MARKETING. Not every prize-winning book is good; not every good book wins a prize. Read what you want to read and take lit prizes with a grain of salt. Ok? Ok.

Love, your friendly neighbourhood PhD candidate in book prizes. Somehow I'm doing this for a living and I love it and I am grateful for the privilege that allows me to do it. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I hate it a lot. But even through my hatred I am grateful.