Canada Reads 2025
2025 LONGLIST: Out now!
SHORTLIST: January 23
DEBATE: March 17-20
A Two-Spirit Journey
- Ma-Nee Chacaby 
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From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community, Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social and economic legacies of colonialism.
As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual violence, and in her teen years became an alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby took her children and, fleeing an abusive marriage, moved to Thunder Bay. Despite the abuse, racism, and indifference she often found there, Chacaby marshalled the strength and supports to help herself and others.
Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety, trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor, raised her children and fostered many others, learned to live with visual impairment, and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in Thunder Bay.
Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, and humour. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people.
All Our Ordinary Stories
- Teresa Wong
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From the author of Dear Scarlet comes a graphic memoir about the obstacles one daughter faces as she attempts to connect with her immigrant parents
Beginning with her mother's stroke in 2014, Teresa Wong takes us on a moving journey through time and place to locate the beginnings of the disconnection she feels from her parents. Through a series of stories - some epic, like her mother and father's daring escapes from communes during China's Cultural Revolution, and some banal, like her quitting Chinese school to watch Saturday morning cartoons - Wong carefully examines the cultural, historical, language, and personality barriers to intimacy in her family, seeking answers to the questions "Where did I come from?" and "Where are we going?" At the same time, she discovers how storytelling can bridge distances and help make sense of a life.
A book for children of immigrants trying to honour their parents' pasts while also making a different kind of future for themselves, All Our Ordinary Stories is poignant in its understated yet nuanced depictions of complicated family dynamics. Wong's memoir is a heartfelt exploration of identity and inheritance, as well as a testament to the transformative power of stories both told and untold.
Becoming a Matriarch
- Helen Knott
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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
The bestselling follow-up to the award-winning, bestselling debut, In My Own Moccasins: When matriarchs begin to disappear, there is a choice to either step into the places they left behind, or to craft a new space.
Helen Knott's debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award juries, and readers alike with its profoundly honest and moving account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, resilience, and survival. Now, in her highly anticipated second book, Knott returns with a chronicle of grief, love, and legacy.
Having lost both her mom and grandmother in just over six months, forced to navigate the fine lines between matriarchy, martyrdom, and codependency, Knott realizes she must let go, not just of the women who raised her, but of the woman she thought she was.
Woven into the pages are themes of mourning, sobriety through loss, and generational dreaming. Becoming a Matriarch is charted with poetic insights, sass, humour, and heart, taking the reader over the rivers and mountains of Dane Zaa territory in Northeastern British Columbia, along the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala, and straight to the heart of what matriarchy truly means. This is a journey through pain, on the way to becoming.
Clyde Fans
- Seth
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"A masterwork... Clyde Fans is a brilliant trip."--Brian Seznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Legendary cartoonist Seth's magnum opus Clyde Fans appeared on twenty best of the year lists, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Washington Post. The first graphic novel nominated for the Giller, Canada's prestigious national fiction prize, it was also nominated for the Eisner and Trillium Awards.
Clyde Fans peels back the optimism of mid-twentieth century capitalism, showing the rituals, hopes, and delusions of a vanished middle-class--garrulous men in wool suits extolling their wares to taciturn shopkeepers. Like the myth of an ever-growing economy, the Clyde Fans family business is a fraud. The patriarch has abandoned it to mismatched sons, one who strives to keep the company afloat and the other who retreats into his memories.
Abe and Simon Matchcard are brothers, struggling to save their archaic family business selling oscillating fans in a world switching to air conditioning. Simon flirts with becoming a salesman as a last-ditch effort to leave the protective walls of the family home, but is ultimately unable to escape Abe's critical voice in his head. As Clyde Fans Co. crumbles, so does the relationship between the two men, who choose very different life paths but both end up utterly unhappy.
Seth's intimate storytelling and gorgeous art allow cityscapes and detailed period objects to tell their own stories as the brothers struggle to find themselves suffocating in an airless home.
Dandelion
- Jamie Chai Yun Liew
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Longlisted for Canada Reads
Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award winner: an Asian woman traces her mother's past journey in order to learn who she really is and where she belongs.
When Lily was eleven years old, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family, never to be seen or heard from again. Now a new mother herself, Lily becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Swee Hua. She recalls the spring of 1987, growing up in a small British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families; Lily's previously stateless father wanted to blend seamlessly into Canadian life, while her mother, alienated and isolated, longed to return to Brunei. Years later, still affected by Swee Hua's disappearance, Lily's family is stubbornly silent to her questioning. But eventually, an old family friend provides a clue that sends Lily to Southeast Asia to find out the truth.
Winner of the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop, Dandelion is a beautifully written and affecting novel about motherhood, family secrets, migration, isolation, and mental illness. With clarity and care, it delves into the many ways we define home, identity, and above all, belonging.
Etta and Otto and Russell and James
- Emma Hooper
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Finalist for the 2017 Frank Hegyi Award for Emerging Authors
"Etta and Otto and Russell and James is incredibly moving, beautifully written and luminous with wisdom. It is a book that restores one's faith in life even as it deepens its mystery. Wonderful!" --Chris Cleave, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Little Bee
"I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back."
Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to water.
Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently--and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.
Etta and Otto and Russell and James is a love story that spans fifty years, three lives, two continents and an ocean. It is a story of love and joy, pain and passion, memory and forgetting--and one incredible journey.
Girl Runner
- Carrie Snyder
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Longlist, Canada Reads 2025
Shortlist, Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2014
Girl Runner is the story of Aganetha Smart, a former Olympic athlete who was famous in the 1920s, but now, at age 104, lives in a nursing home, alone and forgotten by history. For Aganetha, a competitive and ambitious woman, her life remains present and unfinished in her mind.
When her quiet life is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of two young strangers, Aganetha begins to reflect on her childhood in rural Ontario and her struggles to make an independent life for herself in the city.
Without revealing who they are, or what they may want from her, the visitors take Aganetha on an outing from the nursing home. As ready as ever for adventure, Aganetha's memories are stirred when the pair return her to the family farm where she was raised. The devastation of WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic, the optimism of the 1920s and the sacrifices of the 1930s play out in Aganetha's mind, as she wrestles with the confusion and displacement of the present.
Part historical page-turner, part contemporary mystery, Girl Runner is an engaging and endearing story about family, ambition, athletics and the dedicated pursuit of one's passions. It is also, ultimately, about a woman who follows the singular, heart-breaking and inspiring course of her life until the very end.
However Far Away
- Rajinderpal S Pal
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Longlist, Canada Reads 2025
A sweeping family saga set against the backdrop of a Sikh wedding.
On the morning of his nephew's wedding, Devinder Gill is certain the delicate balance of his life will not be upset. Dev is married to Kuldip, and together they are raising two young children in Vancouver. But Dev also has a secret: an affair with his first love, an Irish Canadian woman named Emily Rice. Today, both women will attend the wedding.
As the day progresses through the traditional marriage rituals, the circumstances that led to this precarious situation are revealed through the alternating perspectives of Devinder, Emily, and Kuldip. Dev fails to recognize the building threats-an unwelcome guest, a wandering daughter, a repentant father-and by day's end must accept that he does not have the control over his life that he imagined.
A stunning debut by a talented new voice, However Far Away is an unforgettable story about family secrets, painful compromises, and the promises we break to ourselves and others.
Jennie's Boy
- Wayne Johnston
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER o WINNER OF ONE OF THE 2023 LEACOCK MEDAL FOR HUMOUR A CBC BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOK OF 2022 o Consummate storyteller and bestselling novelist Wayne Johnston reaches back into his past to bring us a sad, tender, and at times extremely funny memoir of his Newfoundland boyhood.
For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a wreck of a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly and skinny, unable to keep food down, plagued with insomnia and a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose, though they had already removed his tonsils, adenoids, and appendix. To the neighbours, he was known as "Jennie's boy," a backhanded salute to his tiny, ferocious mother, who felt judged for Wayne's condition at the same time as she worried he might never grow up.
Unable to go to school, Wayne spent his days with his witty, religious, deeply eccentric maternal grandmother, Lucy. During these six months of Wayne's childhood, he and Lucy faced two life-or-death crises, the odds against them both.
Jennie's Boy is Wayne's tribute to a family and a community that were simultaneously fiercely protective of him and fed up with having to make allowances for him. His boyhood was full of pain, yes, but also tenderness and Newfoundland wit. By that wit, and through love--often expressed in the most unlikely ways--Wayne survived.
The Other Valley
- Scott Alexander Howard
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For fans of Emily St. John Mandel, David Mitchell, and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exquisite literary speculative novel set in an unnamed valley, where bereaved residents can petition to cross a forbidden border to see their lost loved ones again.
Sixteen-year-old Odile Ozanne is an awkward, quiet girl, vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she'll decree who among the town's residents may be escorted deep into the woods, who may cross the border's barbed wire fence, who may make the arduous trek to descend into the next valley over. It's the same valley, the same town. But to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it's twenty years behind. The only border crossings permitted by the Conseil are mourning tours: furtive viewings of the dead in towns where the dead are still alive.
When Odile recognizes two mourners she wasn't supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her classmate Edme have crossed the border from the future to see their son while he's still alive in Odile's present. Edme--who is brilliant and funny, and the only person to truly know Odile--is about to die. Sworn to secrecy by the Conseil so as not to disrupt the course of nature, Odile finds herself drawing closer to her doomed friend--imperiling her own future.
Masterful and original, The Other Valley is an affecting modern fable about the inevitable march of time and whether or not fate can be defied. Above all, it is about love and letting go, and the bonds, in both life and death, that never break.
The Pull of the Stars
- Emma Donoghue
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THE NEW #1 BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE WONDER AND ROOM
Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the great flu. A small world of work, risk, death and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and Room.
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders--Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, caregivers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.
In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.
Watch Out for Her
- Samantha M Bailey
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A tense psychological thriller about a mother who must keep watch at all times if she wants to keep her family safe--from USA TODAY and #1 national bestselling author Samantha M. Bailey.
Wherever you go...
she'll be watching.
Sarah Goldman, mother to six-year-old Jacob, is relieved to move across the country. She has a lot she wants to leave behind, especially Holly Monroe, the pretty twenty-two-year-old babysitter she and her husband, Daniel, hired to take care of their young son last summer. It started out as a perfect arrangement--Sarah had a childminder her son adored, and Holly found the mother figure she'd always wanted. But Sarah's never been one to trust very easily, so she kept a close eye on Holly, maybe too close at times. What she saw raised some questions, not only about who Holly really was but what she was hiding. The more Sarah watched, the more she learned--until one day, she saw something she couldn't unsee, something so shocking that all she could do was flee.
Sarah has put it all behind her and is starting over in a different city with her husband and son. They've settled into a friendly suburb where the neighbors, a tight clique of good citizens, are always on the lookout for danger. But when Sarah finds hidden cameras in her new home, she has to wonder: Has her past caught up to her, and worse yet, who's watching her now?
A spine-tingling, page-turning novel from USA TODAY and #1 national bestselling author Samantha M. Bailey, Watch Out for Her is psychological suspense at its very best--a chilling look at trust, voyeurism, and obsession in the modern age, and how far we will go to watch out for those we love.
What I Know About You
- Éric Chacour , Pablo Strauss
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CBC BOOKS CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE 2024 DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS
FINALIST FOR THE ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE
STARRED REVIEWS IN KIRKUS, BOOKLIST AND QUILL & QUIRE
A heartbreaking tale of a family and an impossible love, torn apart by secrets and traditions in late-twentieth-century Cairo.
As a boy in 1960s Cairo, Tarek knows that his entire life is written in advance. He'll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. Under the watchful eyes of his mother and his sister, he starts to do just that - until Ali enters his life and turns it upside down. The two men, from very different worlds, embark on an unsayable relationship that threatens to tear apart Tarek's family.
Years later, as Tarek is living a solitary life in Montreal, someone starts writing about him and to him, piecing together a past he wants only to forget. But who is the writer of this tale? And will he figure it out in time?
A bestseller in its original Quebec edition, and the recipient of several awards, including the Prix Femina des Lycéens, What I Know About You is poised to be an international sensation.
"This novel is a searing love story that moves between Egypt and Montréal, that shifts between hearts, highlighting the sacrifices the characters feel they have to make for the ones they love. Romantic, surprising, mesmerizing, and so devastating, What I Know About You examines the terrible costs of family secrets and toxic shame." - Suzette Mayr, author of The Sleeping Car Porter
When the Pine Needles Fall
- Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel , Sean Carleton , Pamela Palmater
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One of CBC Books Best Canadian Nonfiction Books of 2024
There have been many things written about Canada's violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in the summer of 1990, but When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance is the first book from the perspective of Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, who was the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) spokesperson during the siege. When the Pine Needles Fall, written in a conversational style by Gabriel with historian Sean Carleton, offers an intimate look at Gabriel's life leading up to the 1990 siege, her experiences as spokesperson for her community, and her work since then as an Indigenous land defender, human rights activist, and feminist leader.
More than just the memoir of an extraordinary individual, When the Pine Needles Fall offers insight into Indigenous language, history, and philosophy, reflections on our relationship with the land, and calls to action against both colonialism and capitalism as we face the climate crisis. Gabriel's hopes for a decolonial future make clear why protecting Indigenous homelands is vital not only for the survival of Indigenous peoples, but for all who live on this planet.
The Whispers
- Ashley Audrain
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*LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025*
INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Expertly, subtly and powerfully rendered. . . . [The Whispers] delivers a sucker-punch ending you'll have to read twice to believe."--The New York Times Book Review
"[An] electrifying . . . razor-sharp page-turner." --Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After
On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighborhood couples and their children gather for a barbecue as the summer winds down. Everything is fabulous until Whitney, the picture-perfect hostess, explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. Everyone at the party hears her exquisite veneer crack--loud and clear. Before long, that same young boy falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night. And then his mother can only sit by her son's hospital bed, where his life hangs in the balance.
Over the course of a tense three days, the women of the neighborhood grapple with what led to that terrible night. People-pleasing Blair, Whitney's best friend, suspects something isn't as it seems. Rebecca, the ER doctor who helps treat Whitney's son, has struggled to have a child of her own. And the all-knowing Mara, the older woman next door, watches everyone's world unravel from her front porch.
Exploring envy, women's friendships, desire, and the intuitions that we silence, The Whispers is a chilling novel that marks Ashley Audrain as a major fiction talent.
This is a selection of our current Canada Reads 2025 titles. To find other titles or authors, or just to browse, please use the search box.
