The top 10 Canadian books of 2023
CBC Books | Posted: December 27, 2023 7:11 PM | Last Updated: December 27, 2023
Counting down the top 10 Canadian titles of 2023, as determined by independent bookstore sales
CBC Books is counting down the top 10 bestselling Canadian titles of 2023! These are the 10 bestselling Canadian titles of the year, as determined by book sales from close to 300 independent Canadian bookstores, courtesy of Bookmanager.
You can listen to the holiday countdown special hosted by Ali Hassan below — or keep scrolling to see which Canadian books made this year's list!
10. Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood's latest is a collection of 15 stories that use narrative — and Atwood's signature intellect and wit — to speak to our modern times. At the centre of the collection are seven stories about a couple through the decades, mapping how their life evolves through the mundane and the extraordinary.
Atwood is a celebrated Canadian writer who has published fiction, nonfiction, poetry and comics. Her acclaimed books include The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, Oryx and Crake and The Edible Woman. She has won several awards for her work including the Governor General's Literary Award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Booker Prize. She is also a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Writers' Trust of Canada.
LISTEN | Margaret Atwood on grief, censorship — and whether AI could ever replicate her writing:
9. 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
Based on a viral article in 2015, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act is the essential guide to understanding the 1876 Indian Act and its repercussions on generations of Indigenous peoples. It also explores how the legal document's legacy has shaped the lives of Indigenous people from 1876 until now. The book examines the legacy of the legal document that he notes has shaped the lives and opportunities of Indigenous communities in Canada.
Bob Joseph, a member of the Gwawaenuk Nation, is the founder and president of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., which offers training on Indigenous relations to government and corporate clients. He's also the bestselling author of 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act.
LISTEN | What Bob Joseph wants you to know about the Indian Act:
8. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
In the dystopian world of Cherie Dimaline's award-winning The Marrow Thieves, climate change has ravaged the Earth and a continent-wide hunt and slaughter of Indigenous people is underway. Wanted for their bone marrow, which contains the lost ability to dream, a group of Indigenous people seek refuge in the old lands.
In 2017, The Marrow Thieves won the Governor General's Literary Award for Young people's literature — text and the Kirkus Prize for young readers' literature. It is currently being adapted for television. The sequel, Hunting by Stars, was released in 2021. The Marrow Thieves was also defended by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018.
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 novels of all time. Dimaline won the 2021 Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award. The $25,000 recognizes the accomplishments of a fiction writer in the middle of their career.
LISTEN | Cherie Dimaline reflects on writing The Marrow Thieves:
7. The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
The Sleeping Car Porter tells the story of Baxter, a Black man in 1929 who works as a sleeping car porter on a train that travels across the country. He smiles and tries to be invisible to the passengers, but what he really wants is to save up and go to dentistry school. On one particular trip out west, the train is stalled and Baxter finds a naughty postcard of two gay men. The postcard reawakens his memories and longings and puts his job in jeopardy.
Suzette Mayr is a poet and novelist based in Calgary. She is the author of the novels Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall, Monoceros, Moon Honey, The Widows and Venous Hum.
LISTEN | Suzette Mayr reacts to winning the Scotiabank Giller Prize:
6. 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.
LISTEN | Jessica Johns discusses Bad Cree:
5. Women Talking by Miriam Toews
In Miriam Toews's powerful novel, eight Mennonite women come together to talk. Why? They have 48 hours to make a decision that will impact every woman and child in their community. Women Talking is inspired by the real-life case in the 2000s, when women in a Bolivian Mennonite community began whispering that they were waking up groggy, in pain, feeling like they had been sexually molested.
Toews is the author of several acclaimed novels, including A Complicated Kindness, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for English-language fiction in 2004 and won Canada Reads in 2006, and All My Puny Sorrows, which won the 2014 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
LISTEN | Sarah Polley discusses adapting Miriam Toews's Women Talking on Q with Tom Power:
4. The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté
In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté examines why chronic illness and general health problems are on the rise in Western countries with good healthcare systems. Maté explains how Western medicine, while technologically advanced, fails to treat the whole person and ignores cultural stressors. With his son Daniel, Maté untangles common myths about what makes us sick and offers a guide on health and healing.
Gabor Maté is a doctor and an expert on topics such as addiction, stress and childhood development. He's the author of several books, including In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says and The Cost of Hidden Stress.
Daniel Maté is a composer and lyricist whose musicals include The Longing and the Short of It, Hansel & Gretl & Heidi & Gunter and Middle School Mysteries. He's received the Kleban Prize for Lyrics and the ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award.
LISTEN | Dr. Gabor Maté talks The Myth of Normal with Shelagh Rogers:
3. Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
In Five Little Indians, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie were taken from their families and sent to a residential school when they were very small. Barely out of childhood, they are released and left to contend with the seedy world of eastside Vancouver. Fuelled by the trauma of their childhood, the five friends cross paths over the decades and struggle with the weight of their shared past.
Five Little Indians won the Amazon First Novel Award in 2021 and won Canada Reads in 2022, championed by Ojibway author and Vogue fashion writer Christian Allaire.
Good is a Cree writer and lawyer who is a member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She was named by CBC Books in 2020 as a writer to watch. She is also the author of the essay collection Truth Telling.
LISTEN | Michelle Good on Unreserved:
2. Greenwood by Michael Christie
In the novel Greenwood, it's the year 2038 and most of the world has suffered from an environmental collapse. But there is a remote island with 1,000-year-old trees and Jake Greenwood works as a tour guide there. From there, the novel takes you back in time as you learn more about Jake, her family and how secrets and lies can have an impact for generations.
Michael Christie is a novelist who grew up in northern Ontario and currently lives in Victoria. His 2011 short story collection The Beggar's Garden won the Vancouver Book Award and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His 2015 novel If I Fall, If I Die won the Northern Lit Award and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
LISTEN | Michael Christie talks Green on Up North with Jonathan Pinto:
1. Ducks by Kate Beaton
Ducks is an autobiographical graphic novel that recounts Beaton's time working in the Alberta oil sands between 2005 and 2008. With the goal of paying off her student loans, Beaton leaves her tight-knit seaside Nova Scotia community and heads west, where she encounters harsh realities, including the everyday trauma that no one discusses.
Beaton 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.
Her success continued with the book Step Aside, Pops! and two children's books, King Baby and The Princess and the Pony.
LISTEN | Mattea Roach gets all their Ducks in a row at Canada Reads 2023: