The longlist for the $25,000 RBC Taylor Prize, recognizing excellence in Canadian literary non-fiction, has been announced.

A jury comprising arts executive Kevin Garland, editor and columnist Martin Levin, and 2013 Taylor Prize winner Andrew Preston selected the following 12 titles:

• Tim Cook, The Necessary War, Volume One: Canadians Fighting the Second World War 1939  43 (Penguin Canada)
• Michael Harris, The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (HarperCollins Canada)
• Plum Johnson, They Left Us Everything (Penguin Canada)
• Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Knopf Canada)
• Rory MacLean, Berlin: Imagine a City (Little, Brown/Hachette)
• Charles Montgomery, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design (Anchor Publishing)
• David O’Keefe, One Day in August: the Untold Story Behind Canada’s Tragedy at Dieppe (Random House Canada)
• Alexandra Richie, Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising (HarperCollins Canada)
• Stephen Smith, Puckstruck: Distracted, Delighted, and Distressed by Canada’s Hockey Obsession (Greystone Books)
• Barbara Taylor, The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in our Times (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• M.G. Vassanji, And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa (Doubleday Canada)
• Kathleen Winter, Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a Northwest Passage (House of Anansi Press)

The shortlist will be announced Jan. 15 and the prize awarded at a ceremony in Toronto March 2. Each shortlisted author will receive $2,000. The winner will also be invited to read at next year’s IFOA and will choose the recipient of the $10,000 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer’s Award.