The CBC Books spring reading list
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: April 26, 2017 8:44 PM | Last Updated: May 5, 2017
Looking for a new read? Here are 21 books you need to read this spring. Download this list as a PDF here!
Sputnik's Children by Terri Favro
What it's about: Debbie Reynolds Biondi, the creator of the successful underground comic Sputnik Chick, is addicted to lorazepam and martinis. When Debbie decides to finally reveal Sputnik Chick's origin story, it quickly becomes apparent that she is, in fact, Sputnik Chick — or at least that's what she believes.
Read this if: You like unreliable narrators, alternate timelines and your fiction infused with quirk.
From the book: "In this vast spectrum of histories, Atomic Mean Time and Earth Standard Time existed side by side — weakly coupled worlds, the pipe-smoking quantum physicists like to call them — separated by the thinnest imaginable membrane of dark matter.
"(How do I know this? Patience, true believer. All will be revealed in due course.)"
American War by Omar El Akkad
What it's about: A second Civil War has divided the United States in 2074, but this time, it's over fossil fuels. Sarat Chestnut is a young girl born on the wrong side of the war, but she turns out to be essential to ending it.
Read this if: You like politicised, inventive post-apocalyptic fiction.
From the book: "The girl poured the honey into the wood's deep knots and watched the serpentine manner in which the liquid took to the contours of its new surroundings. This is her earliest memory, the moment she begins.
"And this is how, in those moments when the bitterness subsides, I choose to remember her. A child."
I, Who Did Not Die by Zahed Haftlang & Najah Aboud with Meredith May
What it's about: Two soldiers — one from Iraq and one from Iran — fought against each other in 1980. But instead of killing each other, one saved the other's life. They unexpectedly reunite at a refugee centre in Vancouver and share their stories of resilience, survival and support.
Read this if: You're interested in an inspiring, eye-opening true story of survival that gives you a look at the human side of what it's like to be a refugee starting over in Canada.
From the book: "Crawling on my belly in the sand, I felt it before it happened: a low rumble like the moment before an earthquake, or maybe Satan himself howling from below. Then a massive boom and I was airborne. Grains of sand needled into my pores, and for the briefest moment, I was suspended above the battlefield. All sound stopped, all the shelling, all the screaming for Allah, all of it was silenced, and the orange flashes of mortar fire looked almost pretty in the darkness. Like candles flickering above the desert."
Men Walking on Water by Emily Schultz
What it's about: A man named Alfred Moss disappears through the frozen Detroit River on a smuggling run to Canada. Moss's death has consequences for several characters, including his wife, a French Canadian brothel owner and a crooked preacher.
Read this if: You are fascinated by Prohibition-era gangsters, the 1920s and historical fiction with surprising contemporary relevance.
From the book: "Willie watched as the other men scuttled back and forth, searching, still hoping they were wrong. After a while, he climbed down from the bank and started to venture out on the frozen river but was called back. He could feel his face cracking beneath his cap, his eyes glassy. This was the worst thing he'd ever seen; it was intolerable to be forbidden from stretching out his body on top of the frail ice and freezing to death himself in search of the lost man. It had been Alfred Moss, not his own father, who'd finished teaching him to drive. Two brown moles beside Willie's eye consulted as he squinted. He spat. A small white gob landed on the white ice: proof he wasn't about to cry."
One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
What it's about: Scaachi Koul brings her razor-sharp observations about culture, identity and coming of age together in this smart and funny debut essay collection.
Read this if: You like women writers who are fearless, observant, funny and unapologetic about who they are and what they have to say.
From the book: "Travelling tells the world that you're educated, that you're willing to take risks, that you have earned your condescension. But do you know what my apartment has that no other place does? All my stuff. All the things that let me dull out the reminders of my human existence, that let me forget that the world is full of dark, impenetrable crags. I have, I think, a healthy fear of dying, and marching forward into the uncharted is almost asking for it."
10 Things I Can See from Here by Carrie Mac
What it's about: Maeve is a teenage girl suffering from anxiety. Her life is turned upside down one summer when she is sent to live with her dad and befriends a girl who is everything Maeve isn't.
Read this if: You like unvarnished, intelligent YA that doesn't shy away from how hard it is to grow up and learn who you want to be — and how to get there.
From the book: "I could easily admit that it was nicer and faster to take the train from Seattle to Vancouver. But the last time I took the train, a woman threw herself in front of it just outside Everett. None of us had any idea what was happening while the train dragged the woman along until it finally screeched to a stop, spreading out her brains and entrails along the tracks. Which I knew because I researched these things. Her name was Carol Epperly. Thirty-six years old. Mother of two. Struggled with depression. No kidding. I read her obituary (of course), and it sounded like someone really angry wrote it. I'm guessing it was her husband, and if so, he was pissed. His name was Doug. He had a lawnmower repair shop in Everett. She struggled against the depression, but clearly not hard enough. That's what it said. And at the end: Never mind a charity; please consider donating to a fund for the boys, who will only know life without their mother from now on."
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
What it's about: A police officer shot and killed 16-year-old Starr Carter's best friend — and she watched it happen. When the incident becomes national news, Starr must figure out how to handle the world's interest in who she is and what she saw while managing her own grief.
Read this if: You like your YA with a strong social message and a likeable, engaging protagonist.
From the book: "I've seen it happen over and over again: a black person gets killed just for being black, and all hell breaks loose. I've Tweeted RIP hashtags, reblogged pictures on Tumblr, and signed every petition out there. I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down.
"Now I am that person, and I'm too afraid to speak."
Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson
What it's about: A mostly happy couple decide to open up their relationship to see if they can figure out exactly what it is that is preventing them from living their fullest life.
Read this if: You like insightful character studies that explore why people do things more than what they did.
From the book: "I think I have a crush on Emily, he tells Kathryn in the shower. This is where they confide crushes.
"A heart crush or a boner crush? Kathryn says.
"He doesn't know how to choose. It's not particularly sexual, his crush. He hasn't thought about Emily that way. And Chris would never say boner. But it's not just his heart, either. It's his molecules."
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
What it's about: Jared is a teenage burnout with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. He's doing everything he can to keep his family together, but when ravens start talking to him — even when he's not stoned — he thinks he might be losing his mind.
Read this if: You love poetic language and richly layered storytelling.
From the book: "Baby lifted a leg and farted. Jared laughed, and then it turned into crying that faded into more sniffling. His heart was a bruise because Baby's heart was full of worms. The X-rays showed them curled in its chambers like glowing balls of wool. Time stretched and folded so it went both too fast and too slow. After his mom finished smoking, she'd come back and drive him to school. He hugged Baby hard and she grumbled. He wasn't going to be alone after she died, but the world was going to be a lonelier place without her."
The Dark and Other Love Stories by Deborah Willis
What it's about: This compelling and unsettling collection of strange tales explores the depths and fringes of human attachment.
Read this if: You're fascinated by the stories and struggles of the people you pass in the street every day.
From the book: "At my house, we would sleep, eat, draw elaborate blueprints for the house we'd one day share, or go for walks. Going for a walk was code for going to the strip mall to smoke cigarettes and hit on the Little Caesars Pizza delivery guys. Cody and Brodie. Their rolled-up sleeves and tattooed biceps seemed to embody masculinity and we adored them obsessively — at least, Lielle did."
Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee
What it's about: Christine Hyung-Oak Lee had a stroke at 33 and it changed everything. As she tried to move forward, she also looks back at her childhood and understand how she ended up who she was before the stroke — and who she is going to become after it.
Read this if: You enjoy emotionally raw, insightful memoirs about overcoming adversity or needing to reinvent your life.
From the book: "For thirty-three years. I had a hole in my heart and I did not know it.
"There was the actual hole in my heart, an undiagnosed birth defect, with which I lived.
"And then there was the hole in my heart that I tried to dam up with other people's needs and then filled with resentment. The resentment spilled out as anger, as a need for control, as an obsession with perfection, as an obsession with cleanliness and disinfecting doorknobs and wearing latex gloves while typing, as compulsion, as picking the cuticles on my nails and my feet and collecting empty milk bottles and hiding them in all the cabinets of my kitchen and under the bathroom sinks until my husband found them months later and as he threw them away I wept for the lost bottles, even though my sadness was not about the lost bottles but about something unfulfilled that I had yet to identify or acknowledge."
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
What it's about: Tom lives in 2016 — but not the 2016 we currently live in. Instead, he finds himself in an alternate 2016: the 2016 imagined by people in the 1950s, complete with flying cars and moon bases. When he accidentally ends up in our 2016, he must figure out if he has what it takes to right the world.
Read this if: You like fast-paced, high-concept fiction.
From the book: "A lot of people take their own vehicles to work but, seriously, three-dimensional traffic sucks. Whatever the cool factor of a flying car, it's mitigated by the gridlock hovering twenty stories above every street."
The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill
What it's about: Rose and Pierrot are orphans growing up in 1920s Montreal. They are charismatic, talented and destined to be together. They dream of opening a travelling circus together, but it seems as though the universe is doing everything it can to keep them from pursing their passions — and from being together.
Read this if: You like whimsical novels with immersive worlds and charming characters.
From the book: "The little girl was crouched over and was speaking to the cat as though they were going over some very important business together. But Rose was so young that she couldn't even speak proper words yet. She was just uttering garbled, burbling noises. They sounded like water in a tiny pot bubbling over. The cat was listening carefully to what Rose said and then hastened out the door, as if to deliver the message to the insurgents."
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
What it's about: This moving and timely novel charts the political awakenings of two women during two pivotal moments in Tunisia's history: the 1984 bread riots and the 2010 Arab Spring.
Read this if: You like your novels to be emotional and bring unexpected voices to noteworthy historical and political events.
From the book: "Aunt Neila and Uncle Mounir made an odd couple. Light years away from Mom and Dad's noisy relationship. There was sadness in Aunt Neila's eyes that never left her, even when she smiled. It was as though she and sadness were one and the same. More than a few times, since I'd been staying with them, I'd come upon her crouched on her prayer mat, bent forward, thighs touching her stomach, head hung low as if she was a prisoner of war."
Birds Art Life by Kyo MacLear
What it's about: Kyo Maclear spent a year birdwatching in Toronto and discovered intangible connections between nature, creativity and well-being.
Read this if: You like quietly beautiful writing that explores the meaning and purpose of art and how nature, art and life come together.
From the book: "I had always assumed grief was experienced purely as a sadness. My received images of grief came from art school and included portraits of keening women, mourners with heads bowed, hands to faces, weeping by candlelight. But anticipatory grief, I was surprised to learn, demanded a different image, a more alert posture. My job was to remain standing or sitting, monitoring all directions continually. Like the women who, according to legend, once paced the railed rooftop platforms of nineteenth-century North American coastal houses, watching the sea for incoming ships, hence earning those lookouts the name widow's walk. I was on the lookout, scouring the horizon from every angle, for doom."
The Accusation by Bandi, translated by Deborah Smith
What it's about: The first piece of fiction to come out of North Korea (it was smuggled out), The Accusation offers an intimate look at several characters struggling to survive in contemporary Korea.
Read this if: You want to understand what life is like in North Korea for ordinary people.
From the book: "Sangki, it's me, Il-cheol. I'm sitting down to write this record of my defection. You remember Choi Seo-hae's Record of an Escape, which he wrote back in 1920? But now it's 1990, more than fifty years since our land was liberated from the Japanese colonizers — and unlike Choi, I'm escaping from my own country. Sounds absurd, doesn't it? But I want you to understand, so I'll try to explain it all as simply as possible."
The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
What it's about: Ariel Levy is a 38-year-old successful writer, pregnant and married. But in a single month, her world falls apart and she's forced to re-examine what it means to be successful and fulfilled.
Read this if: You like moving memoirs that challenge social conventions and expectations or personal stories about overcoming unexpected adversity.
From the book: "Our reproductive powers were first made known to us when we were early adolescents, pubescent children, really. We waited for our periods with excitement! I used to trade maxi pads with my friend Mitsu Yashiro as if they were stickers — our mothers had bought us small boxes of sanitary napkins so that we'd be ready when the big day came. We were delighted by the different silky weaves, the various crotch-conforming shapes, and the promise they held: The future is coming."
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
What it's about: A country is on the verge of civil war, but that doesn't prevent Nadia and Saeed from falling in love. But when the violence becomes too much, they must flee everything they've ever known.
Read this if: You're looking for a smart, stylish book where an against-the-odds love story is blended with contemporary political and cultural overtones.
From the book: "Nadia had long been, and would afterwards continue to be, more comfortable with all varieties of movement in her life than was Saeed, in whom the impulse of nostalgia was stronger, perhaps because his childhood had been more idyllic, or perhaps because this was simply his temperament. Both of them, though, whatever their misgivings, had no doubt that they would leave if given the chance. And so neither expected, when a handwritten note from the agent arrived, pushed under their apartment door one morning and telling them precisely where to be at precisely what time the following afternoon, that Saeed's father would say, 'You two must go, but I will not come.'"
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
What it's about: This moving novel explores the issues of white privilege and cultural appropriation through the lives of Seth and Carter, two New Yorkers bound by their obsession with blues music.
Read this if: You like novels about music, race, class, creativity and identity — or any combination of these that sheds light on contemporary culture.
From the book: "That summer I would ride my bike over the bridge, lock it up in front of one of the bars on Orchard Street and drift through the city on foot, recording. People and places. Sidewalk smokers, lover's quarrels, drug deals. I wanted to store the world and play it back just as I'd found it, without change or addition. I collected audio of thunderstorms, music coming out of cars, the subway trains rumbling underfoot; it was all reality, a quality I had lately begun to crave, as if I were deficient in some necessary vitamin or mineral. I had a binaural setup, two little mics in my ears that looked like headphones, a portable recorder clipped to my belt under my shirt. It was discreet. No one ever noticed. I could roam where I liked and then ride home and listen back through Carter's thousand-dollar headphones at the studio. There were always phenomena I hadn't registered, pockets of sound I'd moved through without knowing."
This Accident of Being Lost by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
What it's about: A sharp collection of stories and songs exploring Indigenous culture and identity in contemporary Canada.
Read this if: You like intense, challenging but beautiful books that are written with unusual structure and style.
From the book: "I mumble some Anishinaabemowin and put my offering in the fire. I think this in english because I don't know how to say any of it: This is our sugar bush. It looks different because there are three streets and 150 houses and one thousand people living in it, but it is my sugar bush. It is our sugar bush. We are the only ones who are supposed to be here. Please help us."
Little Sister by Barbara Gowdy
What it's about: Rose is a 34-year-old woman who lives a quiet life running a cinema with her mother. When she starts having visions of inhabiting another woman's body, she begins to believe she's going crazy. But is she?
Read this if: You're looking for an engaging, easy-to-read novel with an original premise.
From the book: "Harriet? Who was Harriet? Rose has never dreamed that she was someone else inside. Or inside someone else. Yes, inside more accurately descried the feeling of visiting, as opposed to having, the woman's body."