After three years of swanky shortlist announcements alongside the cheese wall at Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens, this year’s shortlist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction came via a very different delivery method.

On the morning of September 16, a few lucky publishers were greeted with a hand-delivered jigsaw puzzle when they arrived at work. “Gather your staff around,” they were told, “there’s good news in this box.”

A 70-piece physical puzzle was given to the nominated publishers and sent to each nominated author. A digital puzzle was also disseminated via email and social media. Along with a good, old-fashioned press release, of course.

Media and publishers alike responded with videos, images and animated gifs of them assembling the puzzle (watch the CBC Books team assemble it below).

This year’s shortlisted authors, in the running for $60,000, are:

• Eliott Behar, Tell it to the World: International Justice and the Secret Campaign to Hide Mass Murder in Kosovo
• Douglas Coupland, Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent
• Dean Jobb, Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation
• Lynette Loeppky, Cease: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Desire
• Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of Ontario on October 6.

Photo at top courtesy of the Writers’ Trust.