30 Canadian books to get your dad on Father's Day
In need of a gift for Father's Day? From thrillers to comics to sports and more — here are 30 Canadian books to give to the paternal figure in your life.
The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay
The Lie Maker is a thriller centres on Jack, a struggling author, who signs on to write made-up stories for people in witness protection. It's not just that he needs a job, Jack's father is in witness protection and this could be his way to find him after years apart. The last time Jack saw his father, he told Jack that he'd killed people. Now, it seems, no one, including the U.S. Marshals, knows where Jack's dad is, but he's determined to find him.
Linwood Barclay is an American Canadian thriller writer with over 20 books to his credit, including the adult thrillers Broken Promise, A Noise Downstairs, Elevator Pitch and the middle-grade novels Escape and Chase.
Ducks by Kate Beaton
Ducks is an autobiographical graphic novel that recounts author Kate Beaton's time spent working in the Alberta oil sands. With the goal of paying off her student loans, Kate leaves her tight-knit seaside Nova Scotia community and heads west, where she encounters harsh realities, including the everyday trauma that no one discusses.
Ducks won Canada Reads 2023, when it was championed by Jeopardy! star Mattea Roach.
Kate Beaton is a cartoonist from Nova Scotia who launched her career by publishing the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant online. The sassy historical webcomic gained a following of 500,000 monthly visitors and was eventually turned into a bestselling book. Beaton's success continued with the book Step Aside, Pops, which won the 2016 Eisner Award for best humour publication. Beaton has also published two children's books, King Baby and The Princess and the Pony.
Psych by Paul Bloom
Psych explores the modern psychology of the brain, answering questions like: What is the function of emotions like shame, gratitude and disgust? And was Freud right about forbidden sexual desires? It also reveals what psychology can tell us about the belief in conspiracy theories, the role of genes in human differences and how to treat depression and anxiety.
Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen professor emeritus of psychology at Yale University. His research explores the psychology of morality, identity and pleasure. He is the author of several books including Against Empathy, Just Babies, How Pleasure Works, Descartes' Baby and The Sweet Spot.
Closer by Sea by Perry Chafe
Closer by Sea is a coming-of-age story set in a small island community dealing with a local fishing industry on the brink of collapse. It's the early 1990s and 12-year-old Pierce Jacobs is struggling to come to terms with his fisherman father's death at sea. He's determined to save up enough to fix his dad's boat and take it out to sea himself. When the community is hit hard by the disappearance of a teenaged girl named Anna, Pierce and a group of friends embark on an epic journey to find her. Along the way, they encounter merciless bullies, brutal storms and magnificent sea creatures. As the mystery unravels, Pierce is forced to abandon his child-like innocence and face the harsh realities of growing up.
Perry Chafe is a TV writer producer and songwriter from St. John's. Chafe co-created and was head writer and showrunner of CBC TV series Republic of Doyle. He is currently a writer and producer on the CBC series Son of a Critch.
The Double Life of Benson Yu by Kevin Chong
The Double Life of Benson Yu is an intriguing metafiction in which the narrator of the story, Benson Yu, recounts his difficult adolescence living in a housing project in 1980s Chinatown. Quickly, Benson's grip on the story loosens as what he wanted to have happened and what actually happened are at odds with one another, making for a layered and unique look into how we come to terms with who we are and what happened to us as children.
Kevin Chong is the author of seven books, including the 2020 book, The Plague, a retelling of Albert Camus' novel of the same name. He was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize for his story, White Space. Based in Vancouver, he teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
Oak Island Odyssey by Scott Clarke
Scott Clarke makes a compelling case for the connection between Freemasonry and the treasure at Nova Scotia's Oak Island in Oak Island Odyssey. Through years of research, Clarke shows how these mysteries are intertwined. Oak Island Odyssey includes images, maps and illustrations, offering a fresh perspective on the secrets of the Freemasons and the Oak Island treasure,
Clarke is a historian, librarian, archivist and record analyst in Toronto. He has been researching Nova Scotia's Oak Island mystery for more than 20 years.
Alphonso Davies: A New Hope by Farhan Devji
Alphonso Davies: A New Hope is the first biography of the Canadian soccer sensation. Based on years of reporting and extensive interviews with friends and family, the book explores Davies's life and career from growing up amidst the Liberian Civil War to starting life in a new country and becoming a superstar, helping Canada reach the men's World Cup for the first time in 36 years.
Farhan Devji is the former reporter for the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and a multimedia storyteller, whose writing has appeared in the Edmonton Journal and Ottawa Citizen. He produced the documentary Becoming Canadian: The Alphonso Davies Story.
Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow
Red Team Blues is a fictional story about the underbelly of Silicon Valley. Martin Hench is a 67-year-old forensic accountant with the expertise to make some very powerful people a lot of money. Despite his know-how, his latest project may see him in over his head — and could cost him his life.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger. His books include Radicalized, Walkaway, a YA graphic novel called In Real Life, the nonfiction business book Information Doesn't Want to be Free and young adult novels like Homeland, Pirate Cinema and Little Brother. Born in Toronto, he now lives in Los Angeles. Doctorow's Radicalized was defended by Akil Augustine on Canada Reads 2020.
Wanda's War by Marsha Faubert
Wanda's War tells the story of Wanda Gizmunt, who was taken from her home in Poland and deported to a forced labour camp in Nazi Germany. After the war ended, she was one of 100 young Polish women brought over to Canada in 1947 to address a labour shortage at a Quebec textile mill. Wanda and the women found themselves captive to their employer and their treatment eventually sparked a national controversy and the scrutiny of Canada's utilitarian immigration policy.
Marsha Faubert is a Toronto-based lawyer. She has worked as a litigator, an arbitrator, an adjudicator of appeals in workplace injury and disease claims and as the director of a provincial tribunal. Wanda's War is her first book.
Quantum Bullsh*t by Chris Ferrie
Chris Ferrie explains quantum physics in a way that makes sense, debunking myths and separating facts from fiction in Quantum Bullsh*t. If you love science and want to learn what quantum entanglement really is ― it has nothing to do with romance ― then this book is for you.
Chris Ferrie is a physicist and the senior lecturer for quantum software and information at the University of Technology Sydney. He has a Masters in applied mathematics, a BMath in mathematical physics and a PhD in applied mathematics. He lives in Australia.
Just Once, No More by Charles Foran
Charles Foran paints a portrait of fatherhood, as his own father begins to face his final decline. Just Once, No More reflects on Foran's relationship with his father, Dave, and how Dave remained a tough and emotionally distant man. Wanting to reassure Dave that he was loved, Foran began to write about their connection. In writing, Foran comes to terms with his own sadness and the stories we tell ourselves and those we love.
Foran is the author of several books including the novels Carolan's Farewell and House on Fire, as well as the nonfiction The Last House of Ulster. He has made documentaries for CBC Radio and is a contributing reviewer for the Globe and Mail. He is currently the executive director of the Writers' Trust of Canada.
Chasing the Black Eagle by Bruce Geddes
Chasing the Black Eagle is a death-defying adventure that sees its protagonist travel from New York to Ethiopia on an undercover mission. When federal agents offer Arthur Tormes a deal to drop all charges against him, he can't say no. The only problem is what he has to say yes to. The cops rope the 17-year-old into what becomes a thirteen-year mission to take Hubert Julian — one of the most widely regarded figures of the Harlem Renaissance — down.
Geddes is the author of one other novel, The Higher the Monkey Climbs. His short fiction has appeared in the New Quarterly, Blank Spaces Magazine and the Freshwater Review. Born in Windsor, Ont., he currently lives in Kingston, Ont.
Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton
Instructions for the Drowning is a short story collection explores themes of love and fear, delusion and idealism and the ironic ways we come up short despite trying our very best. In one, a man remembers his father's instructions for how to save someone who is drowning but then finds himself conflicted when the moment arrives to act. In another, a man fixated by stories of freak accidents ends up bearing the brunt of one himself.
Steven Heighton was an award-winning Ontario novelist, short story writer and poet. He debuted in 1989 with Stalin's Carnival, a poetry collection that earned him the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. His next work, The Ecstasy of Skeptics, was shortlisted for the 1995 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. He received the 2016 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry for The Waking Comes Late. His recent books include Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos, a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, and Selected Poems 1983-2020. In 2021, Heighton released his first album, The Devil's Share. Heighton died in April 2022.
Gibby by John Gibbons & Greg Oliver
John Gibbons shares his story from being raised in a military family to serving as the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays for over 11 years in two separate stints in the book Gibby. Gibbons led the Jays to the American League Championship Series in 2015, ending a 22-year playoff drought. The team did it again in 2016. Gibbons reflects on an on-field career that didn't pan out, but a managing career that did.
Gibbons is a retired professional baseball player and the former manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Greg Oliver is the author of over a dozen books. He is the 2020 recipient of the James C. Melby Historian Award for his contributions to pro wrestling history. He lives in Toronto.
Truth Telling by Michelle Good
Truth Telling is a collection of seven personal essays that explore a wide range of issues affecting Indigenous people in Canada today, including reconciliation, the rise of Indigenous literature in the 1970s and the impact it has to this day, the emergence of "pretendians" and more.
Good is a Cree writer and retired lawyer, as well as a member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Five Little Indians, her first book, won the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. It also won Canada Reads 2022, when it was championed by Ojibway fashion journalist Christian Allaire.
1934 by Heidi L.M. Jacobs
The Chatham Coloured All-Stars may have only been an amateur baseball team for seven years in the 1930s, but its legacy lives on decades later. The team was formed in 1932 by a group of friends in Chatham, Ont., making it the first all-Black organized baseball team in the province. They became the first all-Black team to win a provincial OBAA championship with a victory in the Intermediate B Division. The story of the team's title-winning season is in the book 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars' Barrier-Breaking Year.
Heidi L.M. Jacobs is currently the English and history librarian at the University of Windsor. She is also the co-author of the nonfiction book 100 Miles of Baseball and the author of the novel Molly of the Mall. Molly of the Mall won the 2020 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
On the Ravine by Vincent Lam
Vincent Lam's newest novel is a follow-up of sorts to his 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning story collection Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. In Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, readers met four medical students and were immersed in the challenges and transformations that unfolded as these students became young doctors. On the Ravine revisits two of the characters from the earlier book — Chen and Fitzgerald — several years later in their career. On the Ravine reveals that Chen and Fitzgerald have remained close friends and have devoted themselves to the treatment of opioid addiction, each in a very different way. But when Claire, a talented violinist, comes under Chen's care, his desire to help her is intertwined with his own past — and the demands of her medical care challenge Chen and Fitzgerald's delicately balanced friendship.
Vincent Lam is a Toronto-based short story writer, novelist and medical doctor. His books include the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning story collection Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures and The Headmaster's Wager, a 2012 novel that was shortlisted for the 2012 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.
On Writing and Failure by Stephen Marche
On Writing and Failure is a guide to what you need to continue to exist as a writer. This book explores the role of rejection in literary endeavors and considers failure the essence of the writer's life. Author Stephen Marche reflects on his own history with rejection, the history of writerly failure and turns to James Baldwin's advice just to endure.
Marche is a novelist, essayist and cultural commentator. He is the author of half a dozen books and has written essays for The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, The Walrus and many others. He lives in Toronto.
Agent of Change by Huda Mukbil
Agent of Change recounts Huda Mukbil's experience working as an intelligence officer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Mukbil was the first Black Arab-Canadian Muslim woman to join CSIS and she was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism after 9/11. Her expertise in international security and her commitment to workplace transparency drove important changes in the organization.
Mukbil is an international security consultant, activist and a former intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. She lives in Ottawa.
Outsider by Brett Popplewell
Outsider follows journalist Brett Popplewell as he uncovers the story of Dag Aabye, an aging former stuntman who lived alone inside a school bus on a mountain, running day and night through blizzards and heat waves. The book chronicles Aabye's life from childhood to the silver screen, reflecting on our notions of aging, belonging and human accomplishment.
Popplewell is a writer and associate professor of journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa. He is also the author of The Escapist: How One Man Cheated Death on the World's Highest Mountain.
Prisoner #1056 by Roy Ratnavel
Captured and tortured by government soldiers for being Tamil at the age of 17, Roy Ratnavel sought refuge in Canada. After being released from the prison camp where many of his friends died, Ratnavel's father helped him immigrate, before being shot and killed. To repay his hero father, Ratnavel made the most of his opportunities and rose from the mailroom to the executive suite of the country's largest independent asset management company. Prisoner #1056 recounts this harrowing experience.
Ratnavel was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1969. As a teenager, he became a political prisoner before fleeing to Canada. Ratnavel is now an executive at Canada's largest independent asset management company. He lives in Toronto.
Because by Andrew Steinmetz
Set in the early 1980s, Because tells the story of two brothers who bond over their love of music in their Montreal home. The younger brother, Hombre, is quiet and introspective, while his older brother, Transformer, is hardheaded, assertive and silently dealing with mental health issues. When their mother hires a girl named Spit to help them improve their guitar skills, the decision becomes the catalyst for a set of unexpected and tragic circumstances.
Andrew Steinmetz is a musician and the author of five books including his memoir of his cousin's escape from Nazi Germany, This Great Escape, which was a finalist for the 2013 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His 2009 memoir of his mother's life, Eva's Threepenny Theatre, won the City of Ottawa Book Award and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling
Camp Zero is a futuristic, dystopian thriller set in 2049 that imagines a social order characterized by climate change and digital technology. The protagonist, Rose, is a lower-class hostess working in an elite bar in one of the Floating Cities located away from the dangers of climate breakdown. When a client invites Rose to work as an escort in a place called Camp Zero, she says yes, hoping the job will enable her to take care of her mother. It turns out, her escort job is a cover: she has been tasked with monitoring the architect in charge of designing Camp Zero. Everything changes when Rose settles in to Camp Zero and meets a diverse group of characters, including an all-female military unit, she decides to take her fate into her own hands.
Michelle Min Sterling was born on Vancouver Island, B.C. and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she teaches literature and writing at Berklee College of Music. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Baffler, Vice and Joyland. Camp Zero is her first novel.
The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan
The Marigold explores current eco-anxieties, urban sprawl and social disorder through a futuristic and dystopian lens. In a near-future Toronto, condo developments and ecological collapse reign supreme. And then, the sludge appears. Inside the Marigold, an almost empty condo building, a mysterious, thick substance begins spreading through the walls. Meanwhile, a 13-year-old girl goes underground to save her friend after a creature pulls him down a sinkhole and condo developers stop construction on the Marigold II, a new luxury condo, for what appears to be nefarious reasons.
Andrew F. Sullivan is also the author of The Handyman Method, a forthcoming horror novel co-written with Nick Cutter, the novel Waste and the short story collection All We Want is Everything. He lives in Hamilton, Ont.
In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
In the Upper Country is a fictional portrayal of mid-19th century southern Ontario through the eyes of a young Black journalist. When a woman escaping the U.S. through the Underground Railroad kills a slave hunter, Lensinda is enlisted to interview her from jail. Instead of providing her testimony, the old woman proposes an exchange: a story for a story. The deal seems mundane enough, except their back-and-forth soon reveals an extraordinary range of stories, secrets and untold histories, including those of Black refugee communities and Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes.
Kai Thomas is a writer, carpenter and land steward. Born and raised in Ottawa, he is of Black and mixed heritage descended from Trinidad and the British Isles. In the Upper Country is his first novel. CBC Books named Thomas a Black writer to watch in 2023.
Fire Weather by John Vaillant
Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast is an epic nonfiction work that examines the events surrounding the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's oil industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Fire Weather explores the legacy of North American resource extraction, the impact of climate science and the symbiotic relationship between humans and combustion.
John Vaillant is a writer from Vancouver. His first book, The Golden Spruce, which told the story of a rare tree and the man who cut it down, won the 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. His second title, The Tiger, was a contender on Canada Reads in 2012, defended by Anne-France Goldwater. He is also the author of the novel The Jaguar's Children.
The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton
The Book of Rain is a science fiction novel set in a world where ghost ore, a new minable energy source much more lucrative than gold can disrupt time and space and slowly make an environment inhospitable. In one of three ghost ore hotspots in the world, the mining town of River Meadows, residents have been evacuated, except Amery Hewitt can't seem to stay away.
The former resident frequently returns to River Meadows to save the animals still living in the contaminated zone. When Amery goes on another dangerous trip and doesn't return, her game designer brother, Alex, enlists the help of his mathematician friend to help get her back. All they need to do is break the laws of physics. Amery's story is one plot line of three in this mind-bending epic by Wharton.
Alberta-based author Thomas Wharton has written several books, including his first novel, Icefields, which won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Caribbean. Icefields was a finalist for Canada Reads 2008, when it was defended by Steve MacLean. His novel Salamander, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General's Award for fiction and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize the same year.
The Autumn Ghost by Hannah Wunsch
Hannah Wunsch traces the origins of intensive care units and mechanical ventilation back to the polio epidemic in the book The Autumn Ghost. Without these innovations, the death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic would have been even higher. Through compelling testimony from doctors, nurses, medical students and patients, Wunsch explores how the polio epidemic revolutionized modern medical care.
Wunsch is a critical care physician and researcher at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She is a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the University of Toronto and a Canada Research Chair. The Autumn Ghost is her first book.
Jaj by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
In Jaj, watercolour, a mix of traditional and modern art and an unconventional approach to panelling come together to tell a version of the history of first contact between the Europeans and Indigenous peoples and early colonization.
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is an artist who blends Asian manga with Haida art and oral traditions. His other books include War of the Blink, Red and Carpe Fin.
St. John Mandel's most recent novel, Sea of Tranquility, follows three characters across time, space and reality. A young man ventures into the wilderness of British Columbia in 1912, meanwhile in 2401, a famous writer from a moon colony becomes trapped on Earth during a pandemic and a detective is sent to investigate. In Sea of Tranquility, St. John Mandel explores genre to combine science fiction with current realities.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Emily St. John Mandel is a bestselling Canadian author currently living in New York and Los Angeles. Her other novels include The Glass Hotel, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Station Eleven which was championed by Michael Greyeyes on Canada Reads in 2023.
