32 Canadian books to read in spring 2023
Celebrate the return of spring by reading a great Canadian book! Check out this list of buzzworthy Canadian titles out right now.
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.
WATCH | Mattea Roach on why Ducks should win Canada Reads:
Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison
Falling Hour follows Hugh Dalgarno around a public park as he tries to determine the contents of his mind. An early 30's clerical worker, Dalgarno spends all day and night with his thoughts, walking through the park ruminating on such topics as the theory of quantum morality, nosiness, the CIA and the beauty of nature.
Geoffrey D. Morrison is the author of the poetry chapbook Blood-Brain Barrier and co-author of the short fiction collection Archaic Torso of Gumby. He was a finalist in both the poetry and fiction categories of the 2020 Malahat Review Open Season Awards and a nominee for the 2020 Journey Prize. He lives in Vancouver.
Wires that Sputter by Britta Badour
Britta Badour's debut collection of poetry, Wires that Sputter, explores topics like pop culture, sports, family dynamics and Black liberation.
Badour, better known as Britta B., is an artist, public speaker and poet living in Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Artist Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation. She teaches spoken word performance at Seneca College.
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Bad Cree is a horror-infused novel that centres around a young woman named Mackenzie who is haunted by terrifying nightmares and wracked with guilt about her sister Sabrina's untimely death. The lines between her dreams and reality start to blur when she begins seeing a murder of crows following her around the city — and starts getting threatening text messages from someone claiming to be her dead sister. Looking to escape, Mackenzie heads back to her hometown in rural Alberta where she finds her family still entrenched in their grief. With her dreams intensifying and getting more dangerous, Mackenzie must confront a violent family legacy and reconcile with the land and her community.
Jessica Johns is a Vancouver-based writer, visual artist and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory in northern Alberta. Johns won the 2020 Writers' Trust Journey Prize for the short story Bad Cree, which evolved into the novel of the same name.
Superfan by Jen Sookfong Lee
Jen Sookfong Lee's memoir Superfan begins with the line "I was born in 1976 into a noisy house in East Vancouver where there were never enough bathrooms, privacy or salt and vinegar chips to go around." There was, however, television, music, celebrity — popular art. Superfan is a memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman's life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief and the power of female rage.
Jen Sookfong Lee is a writer from Vancouver. Her books include The Conjoined, which was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; The Better Mother, which was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award; The End of East; and Finding Home.
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.
Really Good Actually by Monica Heisey
Really Good, Actually follows Maggie, a 20-something woman trying to navigate heartbreak, divorce and online dating at a young age. Inspired by her personal experiences, Heisey explores the art of moving on, proving the process is a lot messier, nonlinear and interdependent than many of us would like to admit.
Monica Heisey is a comedian who has written for print and television, including shows like CBC's Schitt's Creek and Baroness von Sketch Show.
Song of the Sparrow by Tara MacLean
In her memoir Song of the Sparrow, singer-songwriter Tara MacLean recalls her childhood in the backwoods of P.E.I. where hunger and uncertainty were always near as the daughter of a musician father and actor mother. Growing up, MacLean found danger even in her most trusted circles turning to singing as a refuge. Song of the Sparrow charts her musical career from her early days to touring with Dido, Tom Cochrane and Lilith Fair.
Tara MacLean is a singer-songwriter from P.E.I. She has been a recording and touring artist for over 25 years. She is also a playwright, author, poet and mother. Song of the Sparrow is her first book.
Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr
Hold My Girl is a dual narrative novel about two women, Katherine and Tess, whose eggs are switched during IVF. Hold My Girl, which explores the complexities of love, motherhood and racial identity, was optioned in 2023 by production company Blink Studios for a series adaptation.
Charlene Carr is a Toronto-raised writer and author who is now based in Nova Scotia. She is the author of several independently published novels and novellas. Hold My Girl is her first novel with a major publisher.
VenCo by Cherie Dimaline
VenCo is a subversive and imaginative adult novel about a coven of modern-day witches. The book's protagonist, Lucky St. James, finds herself down on her luck when she and her grandmother Stella are set to be evicted from their apartment. One night, doing laundry in the building's basement, Lucky finds a tarnished silver spoon that features an illustration of a witch over letters that spell out S-A-L-E-M. This alerts Lucky to Meena, someone who is part of VenCo, an international headhunting firm that seeks out exceptional women. An adventure unfolds involving secret witches, witch hunters, magic spoons and an epic road trip from Toronto to Salem, through Appalachia and into New Orleans.
Cherie Dimaline is a Métis author and editor. Her other books include Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit and Empire of Wild. The Marrow Thieves was named one of Time magazine's top 100 YA books of all time. The Marrow Thieves was defended by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018. The Marrow Thieves also won the Governor General's Literary Award for Young people's literature — text and the Kirkus Prize for young readers' literature.
We Are All Perfectly Fine by Dr. Jillian Horton
Six years ago, Dr. Jillian Horton was feeling burned out. At the time, she attended a five-day meditation retreat for healthcare workers. Horton arrived a skeptic, suspicious about whether a week-long wellness excursion would actually quell the exhaustion built up over years of working in a high-intensity, often overburdened healthcare system. The connections she made and the stories she heard from other healthcare professionals left a profound impact. So profound that Horton decided to write a memoir about her experience. That book is We Are All Perfectly Fine.
Dr. Jillian Horton is a medical educator, writer, musician and podcaster from Winnipeg.
More Sure by A. Light Zachary
A. Light Zachary's debut collection, More Sure, is about the process of finding oneself again and again through time, experience and community. The poet explores themes of queerness, neurodivergence, labour, love and family.
Zachary is a writer, editor and teacher living in Toronto and Grande-Digue, N.B. Zachary was longlisted twice for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize for their poems Two Girls and Why bury yourself in this place you ask.
Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality by Lindsay Wong
Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality is a collection of "immigrant horror stories." From Shanghai to Vancouver, the women in Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality haunt and are haunted — by first loves, troublesome family members and traumatic memories.
- Lindsay Wong writes 'immigrant horror stories' in new book Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality
Lindsay Wong is a Vancouver-based author. She holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. Wong's memoir The Woo-Woo was a finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was defended by Joe Zee on Canada Reads 2019. CBC Books named Wong a writer to watch in 2019 and My Summer of Love and Misfortune, her first YA novel, was published in 2020.
In the Belly of the Congo by Blaise Ndala
In the Belly of the Congo is a novel about Nyota Kwete, a young woman set to attend university in Brussels when her father asks her to uncover the mystery behind her grandmother's disappearance. Kwete's grandmother is Princess Tshala Nyota, the daughter of King Kena Kwete III of the Kuba people in Congo. She disappeared decades ago after being forced to perform at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels as a display of the Belgium royal palace's power. In the Belly of the Congo tells the Congolese princess's story leading up to her disappearance, including her young life in the Congo, her love affair with a Belgian administrator and her adventures in Europe. Decades later, her granddaughter traverses the same streets she did, crossing paths with a Belgian scholar who helps her uncover her family's secret history.
Blaise Ndala is the Ottawa-based Congolese Canadian author of the novels J'irai danser sur la tombe de Senghor, which won the Ottawa Book Prize in the French Fiction category and Sans capote ni kalachnikov, winner of the 2019 edition of the Combat national des livres.
Hollow Bamboo by William Ping
Based on a true story, with elements of magical realism and satire, Hollow Bamboo explores the history of Chinese emigration to Newfoundland through a familial lens. When millennial William Ping finds himself in an uncomfortable conversation about his Chinese heritage with his girlfriend's parents, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. There, William is visited by a stubborn and sarcastic spirit named Mo. The spirit soon takes him to the past where he learns about his grandfather, the first William Ping, who moved to Newfoundland from China in 1931.
William Ping is a Chinese Canadian writer from Newfoundland. His debut novel Hollow Bamboo was written as a creative thesis for his MA at Memorial University. He is a producer with CBC Newfoundland.
The Porcelain Moon by Janie Chang
The Porcelain Moon is a story about forbidden love, belonging and freedom. Set in France in the final days of the First World War, the book follows Pauline Deng, a young Chinese woman who runs away from her uncle's home in Paris to avoid an arranged marriage in Shanghai. Pauline is offered refuge by Camille Roussel, a woman trying to escape from her abusive husband, and the two become fast friends. When Pauline discovers a secret Camille has been hiding, their situation becomes dangerous and the two women must make a choice that binds them together forever.
Janie Chang is a B.C.-based historical fiction writer who draws inspiration from her family history, ancestral tales and the stories she was told as a child about life in a Chinese small town pre-First World War. Her novels Three Souls, Dragon Springs Road and The Library of Legends paint a picture of what life was like in China in the early 20th century.
Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison
Redemption Ground is Lorna Goodison's first essay collection. It weaves the personal and political to reflect on her life, her love of poetry and art, the legacy of colonialism and the power of friendship. The collection takes its title from one of the oldest markets in Kingston, Jamaica and introduces a vivid cast of characters. The essays move from a cinema in Jamaica to New York's Bottom Line club, reflecting on daily challenges and uplifting compassion.
Lorna Goodison is one of Canada's most renowned writers. She was Jamaica's poet laureate from 2017 to 2020. Goodison is the author of several books including Collected Poems, and the memoir From Harvey River, which won the 2008 B.C. National Award for Canadian nonfiction. She was awarded the 2019 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for her body of work.
The Story of Us by Catherine Hernandez
The Story of Us is the story of Mary Grace Concepcion, a Filipino worker who has left her family behind to build a new life in Canada. She secures employment as a personal support worker in Toronto, caring for Liz, an elderly woman living in a bungalow in Scarborough who is living with dementia. An unlikely relationship blossoms between the two, as Mary Grace works to bring her husband to Canada and learns more about Liz's surprising past. The Story of Us is narrated by Mary Grace's infant daughter, adding a unique twist to this heartfelt story.
Catherine Hernandez is a Canadian writer, author and playwright. She is the author of several books, including the novels Scarborough and Crosshairs and the children's books I Promise, M is for Mustache and Where Do Your Feelings Live?. She is also the creator and star of the Audible Original sketch comedy podcast Imminent Disaster. Scarborough was championed by actor Malia Baker on Canada Reads 2022. It was also adapted into a feature film that premiered at TIFF in 2021. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2017.
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.
A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart
A Death at the Party is a thriller set over the course of a single day. The book centres around Nadine Walsh, a loving mother, devoted wife and dutiful daughter. While preparing to host a birthday party for her mother, Nadine is overwhelmed with thoughts of the past. The party was supposed to be a chance for her friends and family to celebrate, have fun and forget — but Nadine is caught up with haunting memories and secrets that might come to a head when her guests arrive.
Amy Stuart is a bestselling novelist and short story writer, currently living in Toronto. She is the author of the Still Mine thriller series, which features the novels Still Mine, Still Water and the latest entry, Still Here.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Birnam Wood is a thriller set in the middle of a landslide in New Zealand. Looking to make opportunity out of a disaster, Mira, the founder of a guerilla gardening collective that plants crops amid other criminal environmental activities, sets her sights on an evacuated farm as a way out of financial ruin. The only problem is the American billionaire Robert Lemoine has already laid claim to it as his end-of-the-world lair. After the same thing for polar opposite reasons, their paths cross and Robert makes Mira an offer that would stave off her financial concerns for good. The question is: can she trust him?
Eleanor Catton is a London, Ont.-born New Zealand author. She won the 2013 Booker Prize for fiction and the 2013 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction for her second novel, The Luminaries.
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.
Pandexicon by Wayne Grady
The pandemic has changed the world — including our language and our cultural understanding of the world around us. Wayne Grady kept a list of words that emerged over the course of the pandemic, and has woven that notekeeping with journal entries and a timeline in Pandexicon. Pandexicon reflects how the pandemic changed the way we communicate and how we connect with and understand each other.
Wayne Grady is the author of three novels and several books of nonfiction, including The Great Lakes, Bone Museum and Bringing Back the Dodo. He lives in Kingston, Ontario and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese
Chrysalis is a short story collection that examines the ways in which racialized women are undermined and exploited and the ways in which they reclaim their power. Blending realism with elements of fantasy, Varghese tells stories of a woman dying in her sleep repeatedly until she finds an unexpected refuge or a couple in a broken marriage encountering spiritual direction. Each story looks at family, sexuality, cultural norms and the ties that bind.
Anuja Varghese is a Hamilton, Ont.-based writer and editor. Her stories have been recognized in the Prism International Short Fiction Contest and the Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Chrysalis is her first book.
The Fake by Zoe Whittall
The Fake is about Shelby, who signs up for a grief support group after her wife dies and grieving with her family becomes unbearable. There, she meets Cammie, a dynamic person who just so happens to have cancer. Shelby throws herself into supporting Cammie but the closer she grows to her, the more she begins to question the person she is supporting. When Shelby meets Gibson, a newly divorced man who is intimately involved with Cammie, the two of them soon realize Cammie may not be everything she says she is.
Zoe Whittall is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. Her books include Bottle Rocket Hearts, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, a Lambda Literary Award winner, and The Best Kind of People, which was a finalist for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She's also a writer for the hit CBC comedy series Baroness Von Sketch Show and was a story editor on the sitcom Schitt's Creek. The Best Kind of People is being adapted for film by Sarah Polley. Whittall lives in Toronto.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
The Berry Pickers centres around a fictional, decades-old cold case of a missing four-year-old girl of a Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia. When four-year-old Ruthie goes missing from a blueberry field in Maine in 1962, her brother Joe — the last person to see her before she went missing — is forever changed by her disappearance. In Maine, a girl named Norma senses there is something her family isn't telling her. That feeling stays with her and eventually sets her off on a years-long journey to uncover the truth.
Amanda Peters is a writer of Mi'kmaq and settler ancestry living in Annapolis Valley, N.S. Her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Dalhousie Review and Filling Station Magazine. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers' Trust Rising Stars program.
Coronation Year by Jennifer Robson
Coronation Year is a novel set against the backdrop of Queen Elizabeth's 1953 coronation. In the Blue Lion Hotel, where the Queen is set to drive by in a carriage on her way to be crowned, the residents could not be more excited. That's because each one needs this day to happen for their own reasons. Edie, the owner of the hotel, is hoping the festivities will bring in a crowd that saves her from financial ruin. Stella Donati is a Holocaust survivor and photographer looking for a fresh start. James Geddes finally found a home in the Blue Lion after facing racial discrimination; if Edie can make enough money to keep the doors open, he could see a future here. When someone makes threats against Coronation Day the residents of the Blue Lion Hotel take it upon themselves to find out who is behind them or risk losing the security and peace this day promises to usher in.
Jennifer Robson is a Toronto-based historical fiction writer. Her books include Goodnight From London, Moonlight Over Paris, After the War is Over, Somewhere in France and Fall of Poppies.
Optic Nerve by Matthew Hollett
Matthew Hollett employs wordplay and a specific kind of playfulness in poems about photography, perception and ways of seeing in the poetry collection Optic Nerve. Hollett dissects the way we see the world, from perspectives such as the inside of an eyeball to the impact of a bomb crater.
Hollett is a writer and visual artist in St. John's. He published his debut book, Album Rock, in 2018. Hollett won the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize for Tickling the Scar.
A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny
A World of Curiosities is Louise Penny's 18th book in the Armand Gamache series, which takes place in a warm, eccentric, tight-knit community known as Three Pines. This time out, Inspector Gamache gets caught up in a story involving two young siblings who have appeared in the village. The pair were young when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged. Gamache must uncover why they have arrived in town — before it's too late.
Louise Penny, a former CBC broadcaster and journalist, is the award-winning author of the Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries.
Some Unfinished Business by Antanas Sileika
Some Unfinished Business tells the story of Martin Averka as he endures Soviet occupation and imprisonment in the Gulags, determined to see his wife again. Later, having survived the horrors of the labour camps, Martin is fueled by another emotion: retribution for the man that betrayed him and his friends decades earlier.
Antanas Sileika has written six other books, including Provisionally Yours and the memoir The Barefoot Bingo Caller. He regularly appears as a columnist on The Next Chapter. He's the former director of the Humber School for Writers.
Burr by Brooke Lockyer
Burr is a gothic fiction work; it uses magical realism and ghosts to explore death, grief and the relationships we form to come to terms with them. Jane, a 13-year-old girl, entertains the idea of digging a tunnel to her dead father's coffin. This level of angst leads her to Ernest, a man still grieving from the drowning of his younger sister years before. The two strike up a bond while Jane's mother remains absent and, eventually, get the town talking when they both disappear from Burr.
Brooke Lockyer is a Toronto-based writer. She won the 2009 Hart House Literary Contest and is a co-recipient of both the Peter S. Prescott and the Lenore Marshall Barnard prizes for prose. Her work has been published in Toronto Life, carte blanche, the Hart House Review, White Wall Review and Geist.
The Winter Knight by Jes Battis
In The Winter Knight, Jes Battis reimagines the King Arthur legends as a modern, queer detective. These days, the knights of the round table live in Vancouver. When one of them turns up dead, Hildie, the lead investigator, is determined to find the murderer. On her list of suspects are Wayne, an autistic reincarnation of a medieval figure trying to keep up with modern times, and Burt, Wayne's love interest. To solve the case, Hildie will have to come up against some powerful adversaries, including knights, runesmiths and a beast hunting people's dreams.
Battis is a queer autistic writer and teacher and the author of the Occult Special Investigator series and Parallel Parks series. Their first novel, Night Child, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award.
