The five books shortlisted for the 2024 Donner Prize.

The COVID-19 pandemic, corporate governance, intimate partner violence, and the power of the courts are the topics examined by the five books shortlisted for the Donner Prize.

The annual $60,000 prize, established in 1998, recognizes the best book about public policy written by a Canadian. This year, the jury read more than 80 books submitted by a record-breaking 47 publishers.

The winner will be announced at an event in Toronto on May 15. The four finalists will each receive $7,500.

The shortlisted books are:

• Fiscal Choices: Canada After the Pandemic by Michael M. Atkinson and Haizhen Mou (University of Toronto Press)
• And Sometimes They Kill You: Confronting the Epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence by Pamela Cross (Between The Lines)
• Constraining the Court: Judicial Power and Policy Implementation in the Charter Era by James B. Kelly (UBC Press)
• Seized by Uncertainty: The Markets, Media and Special Interests that Shaped Canada’s Response to COVID-19 by Kevin Quigley, Kaitlynne Lowe, Sarah Moore, and Brianna Wolfe (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Hard Lessons in Corporate Governance by Bryce C. Tingle (Cambridge University Press)