I Read Canadian
As a Canadian-owned and operated company, McNally Robinson has always put a special emphasis on Canadian authors and their books. Featured here are some of our favourite recent Canadian books.
On Isabella Street
- Genevieve Graham 
Trade paperback
$25.99
Reader Reward Price: $23.39
Instant Bestseller
From #1 bestselling author Genevieve Graham comes a gripping novel set in Toronto and Vietnam during the turbulent sixties about two women caught up in powerful social movements and the tragedy that will bring them together--perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah's The Women.
Toronto, 1967. Two young women with different backgrounds, attitudes, and aptitudes are living in an exciting but confusing time, the most extreme counter-culture movement the modern world has ever seen. They have little in common except for the place they both call home: an apartment building on Isabella Street.
Marion Hart, a psychiatrist working in Toronto's foremost mental institution, is fighting deinstitutionalization--the closing of major institutions in favour of community-based centres--because she believes it could one day cause major homelessness. When Daniel Neumann, a veteran with a debilitating wound, is admitted to the mental institution, Marion will learn through him that there is so much more to life than what she is living.
Sassy Rankin, a budding folk singer and carefree hippy from a privileged family, joins protests over the Vietnam War and is devastated that her brother chose to join the US Marines. At the same time, she must deal with the truth that her comfortable life is financed by her father, a real estate magnate bent on gentrifying the city, making it unaffordable for many of her friends.
The strength of their unlikely friendship means that when one grapples with a catastrophic event, the other must do all she can to make it right.
Inspired by the unfettered optimism and crushing disillusionment of the sixties, On Isabella Street is an extraordinary novel about the enduring bonds of friendship and family and the devastating cost of war.
Ring of Dust
- Louise Marois , D M Bradford
Trade paperback
$23.95
Reader Reward Price: $21.56
Featured on CBC Books as an anticipated spring 2025 Canadian poetry collection
A poem sequence that embraces the ruptures a lyrical turn makes possible.
In Ring of Dust, Quebec poet Louise Marois delights in poetic feints, temporal leaps, asides, tangents, sleights of hand, call-backs and echoes. This ambitious collection of sequences populates plural dialogues between then and now, family and entourage, lover and nature, mother and death, work-person and artist, fables and confidences, limits and new reaches, home and escape, city and field, queer life and a blood red world. It's a proposition that enters the mess of memory in hopes of reconciling, one disharmony at a time, the many voices who inhabit what keepsakes remain. This book is past and present at war with each other; it's also the future emerging from the page-by-page bout, all born anew in an exuberant translation by D.M. Bradford.
She's a Lamb!
- Meredith Hambrock
Trade paperback
$24.95
Reader Reward Price: $22.46
A darkly comic suspense in the vein of All's Well and Yellowface, She's a Lamb! is an edgy and incisive novel that marches toward showtime with a growing unease about the dangers of magical thinking and the depths of delusion
Jessamyn St. Germain is meant to be a star. Not an actor who occasionally books yogurt commercials and certainly not a lowly usher at one of Vancouver's smallest regional theaters. No, she is bound for greatness, and that's why the part of Maria in the theater's upcoming production of The Sound of Music is hers. Or it's going to be.
Jessamyn may have been relegated to the position of childminder for the little brats playing the von Trapp children, but it's so obvious she's there for a different reason -- the director wants her close to the role so when Samantha, the lead, inevitably fails, Jessamyn will be there to take her place in the spotlight.
This must be it. Because if it isn't, well, then every skipped meal, every brutal rehearsal, every inch won against a man attempting to drag her down will have all been for nothing.
Sharp, relentless, and darkly funny, She's a Lamb! is a cutting satire about the grotesque pall patriarchy casts over one woman's delusional quest to achieve her dreams and the depths she will sink to for a chance at the life she's convinced she deserves.
Small Ceremonies
- Kyle Edwards
Hardcover
$32.00
Reader Reward Price: $28.80
Part coming-of-age novel, part searing examination of a community finding itself, Small Ceremonies is a tantalizing and heartbreaking debut.
"I fear for our friendship, for the day it will end, wondering when that day will be . . ."
Tomahawk Shields (a.k.a. Tommy) and Clinton Whiteway are on the cusp of adulthood, imagining a future rife with possibility and greatness. The two friends play for their high school's poor-performing hockey team, the Tigers, who learn at the start of the new season that the league wants them out. Their annual goal is now more important than ever: to win their first game in years and break the curse.
As we follow these two Indigenous boys over the course of a year, we are given a panoptic view of Tommy and Clinton's Winnipeg, where a university student with grand ambitions chooses to bottle her anger when confronted with numerous micro- (and not so micro-) aggressions; an ex-convict must choose between protecting or exploiting his younger brother as he's dragged deeper into the city's criminal underbelly; a lonely rink attendant is haunted by the memory of a past lover and contemplates rekindling this old flame; and an aspiring journalist does everything she can to uncover why the league is threatening to remove the Tigers. These are a sampling of the chorus of voices that depicts a community filled with individuals searching for purpose, leading them all to one fateful and tragic night.
Ferociously piercing the heart of an Indigenous city, Kyle Edwards's sparkling debut is a heartbreaking yet humour-flecked portrayal of navigating identity and place, trauma and recovery, and growing up in a land that doesn't love you.
The Snares
- Rav Grewal-Kök
Hardcover
$39.00
Reader Reward Price: $35.10
A Punjabi American lawyer at a mysterious federal intelligence agency fights to keep his career, marriage, and morality intact in this gripping post-9/11 drama from "our immigrant John le Carré" (Xuan Juliana Wang, author of Home Remedies).
"A chilling peek into U.S. Intelligence . . . Rav Grewal-Kök's intriguing novel seems intent on unsettling us from its opening pages, with coolly precise prose that sneaks nimbly around the periphery of its characters' darkest thoughts and actions."--The New York Times
"Are you happy where you are? Toiling in the trenches of the Justice Department?"
In the waning months of George W. Bush's presidency, Neel Chima, a former naval officer and federal prosecutor, is recruited to join a new federal intelligence agency--one with greater than usual powers and fewer than usual restrictions. Neel soon finds himself intimately involved in the surveillance of domestic terrorism suspects and the selection of foreigners for drone assassination--men who often look just like his Sikh family members. As both his ambitions and his moral qualms mount, he is drawn farther and farther away from his wife and two young daughters. When he makes a critical mistake at work, he is left vulnerable to shadowy figures in the intelligence world who seek to use him in their own, still more radical counterterrorism missions. If he agrees, the world of power will open up even wider to him. If he doesn't . . .
Is Neel an insider or an outsider? The hunter or the hunted? An idealist or a mercenary? What truths, and whose lives, is he willing to sacrifice? The novel plunges readers into the human turmoil behind the faceless operations--the torture, secret assassinations, and drone strikes--of the American security state, creating an eye-opening meditation on morality, violence, and the price of a human soul.
Tahini Baby
- Eden Grinshpan
Hardcover
$45.00
Reader Reward Price: $40.50
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An irresistible celebration of veg-forward Middle Eastern- and Mediterranean-inspired recipes guaranteed to bring fresh flavors and liven up your table, from the beloved TV personality, cookbook author, and creator of Eden Eats.
For Eden Grinshpan, everyday cooking means saying yes to more shareable and delicious dishes, more veggies, and more fun in the kitchen. Tahini Baby invites you into Eden's world and offers her joyful, playful, and always forgiving approach to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-inspired meals. Packed with tangy, tart, rich, and creamy ingredients, especially Eden's #1 fave (tahini!), these dishes lend themselves to endless mixing and matching.
From noshes and breakfast to boss veggie sides and hearty mains, as well as condiments, dips, and pickles that add pops of glorious flavor, these dishes will bring ease and exciting flavors to any and every meal. Try the Eggplant Schnitzel drizzled with Garlicky Tahini, mop up the Golden Amba Pepper Sauce Za'atar with Laffa, and enjoy Harissa-Roasted Cauliflower with a flavor-packed Preserved Lemon Toum. Strawberry Rhubarb Rose Tahini Crumble and Sage-Honey Semifreddo provide the perfect, satisfying ending to any dinner. Whether you're throwing together a casual dinner party, putting together a lunch or brunch of made-in-advance components, or feeding a family, Eden's way of veg cooking is happy-making, versatile, and always guaranteed to wow.
Theory of Water
- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Hardcover
$35.00
Reader Reward Price: $31.50
Acclaimed Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes a revolutionary look at that most elemental force, water, and suggests a powerful path for the future.
For many years, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has found refuge in skiing--in all kinds of weather across different forms of terrain, often following the trail beside a beloved creek near her home. Recently, as she skimmed along this path and meditated on our world's uncertainty--including environmental devastation, the rise of authoritarianism, and the effects of ongoing social injustice--her mind turned to the ice beside her, and the snow beneath her feet. And she asked herself: What might it mean to truly listen to water? To know not only the land on which we live, but the water that surrounds and inhabits us? To coexist with and alongside water?
So begins this renowned writer's quest to discover, understand, and trace the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. On her journey, she reflects on the teachings, traditions, stories, and creative work of others in her community--particularly those of her longtime friend Doug Williams, an Elder whose presence suffuses these pages; reads deeply the words of thinkers from other communities whose writing expands her own; and begins to shape a "Theory of Water" that reimagines relationships among all beings and life-forces.
In this essential and inventive work, Simpson artfully weaves Nishnaabeg stories with her own thought and lived experience--and offers a vision of water as a catalyst for transformation, today and into our shared future.
Try Hard
- Max Kerman
Hardcover
$36.00
Reader Reward Price: $32.40
INSTANT BESTSELLER!
Funny, conversational, and relatable, Try Hard is for anyone looking to make sense of their own creative pursuit or bring more creativity into their life, offering a framework for how to do it and where to begin.
Let's say you see a familiar musician from a globe-trotting, touring band hanging out at your local coffee shop, reading the newspaper and typing away on his laptop. This doesn't look like a musician at work. He seems approachable enough, so you ask him what exactly he does all day. With a grin on his face, he admits the job might not be what you think. So you take a seat, and ask him every question you've ever had about how it all works: the nuts and bolts of writing a song, preparing for a show, marketing a band, and the day-to-day business of a creative life.
With each answer--none of it about talent--you realize this musician is a bit of a...try hard. And the mystery of being a creative person isn't actually mysterious at all: it's just exploring ideas with an enthusiastic and determined curiosity. Over and over.
Max is that musician in the coffee shop, and this is what reading Try Hard feels like: one-of-a-kind tales from a dynamic frontman, and a companion to your own creative work in progress. With a brick-by-brick attitude, Max explores his own growth in the craft of storytelling and performance, the pleasure to be found in collaboration, and the creative spirit required in sharing your art.
This is a selection of our current I Read Canadian titles. To find other titles or authors, or just to browse, please use the search box.
