Top Canadian books to watch out for in 2023

A new year means the earth has begun a new orbit around the sun — but for readers it means new worlds of words await

By: Melanie Nava Urribarri

black graphic with a red lined illustration of the back of a person's head holding books

In most parts of Canada, January always brings a familiar, freezing breeze that seeps through thick coats and tickles the nerves on our skin as we try desperately to stay warm. This frigid month also puts forward the promise of new beginnings and the slow descent of the winter months. You just have to survive, let the snow become a routine and the early sundown blanket you until the summer brings back its comforting warmth.

It’s clear that enjoying winter can be hard for most of us (I personally will not leave my house unless necessary), but with January, Canada also brings along an ocean of writers that the new year has given opportunity to. They’re well-rested and excited to let their words flow to the masses. So for your survival, I’ve listed below a few of the top Canadian books to watch out for in 2023 to help you get that last push you need to get through this harsh, Canadian winter.

“What Remains of Elsie Jane” by Chelsea Wakelyn

Written by Canadian musician and author Chelsea Wakelyn from Vancouver Island, this novel holds 4.5 stars on Goodreads so far from readers who have received the book in advance.

As an adult fiction novel, it’s described to be “a heartbreaking and darkly funny portrait of a woman unravelling in the wake of tragedy.” The story follows Elsie Jane, who has just lost her partner. She’s left to manage the hardships of life and care for her daughter and son on her own, as well as manage her grief alone. Advance readers felt the loss portrayed was authentic to the grieving process, though because of the heavy material directly related to that distress, they say it was a bit hard to get entirely lost in the novel.

If you’re interested in reading contemporary, heart-wrenching realities, this book may be for you. What Remains of Elsie Jane will be available on Amazon and at Barnes and Nobles for purchase starting Feb. 28, 2023.

“Sing, Nightingale” by Marie Hélène Poitras

Written by Marie Hélène Poitras in French and translated into English by Rhonda Mullins, this book holds 3.4 stars on Goodreads and is described as “a gothic tale of secrets and revenge.”

The novel is a mix of the mystique and the sinister. Right off the bat, it is revealed that an estate once flourishing, is falling into ruin — along with the people inhabiting it. Following a long line of fathers who have succeeded in these lands at the expense of others (mostly women), a woman by the name of Aliénor is brought to the community by the current father of the estate. She brings a promise to the land —that the plants will flourish, the animals will multiply and each feast will be more sumptuous than the last. The twist? Aliénor is a “whisperer,” a woman that is able to awaken past generations of silenced women now able to have their voices heard.

If gothic fiction is your genre, this novel will be published Feb. 14, 2023, and available at All Lit Up.

“Old Babes in the Wood” by Margaret Atwood

A highly anticipated new release by literary legend Margaret Atwood, her first short story collection since 2014 dives into the depths of “family relationships, marriage, loss and memory, and what it means to spend a life together.”

Here, Atwood is able to go back to short fiction, returning with her creativity and her prized skill at touching the driving forces of humanity with stories that continue to both delight and devastate.

Coming out on March 7, 2023, this book will be available at Indigo as well as many other bookstores across the country.

“Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness” by Virginia Heffernan

Expected March 14, 2023, this book is written by Virginia Heffernan, an author from Toronto and a former geoscientist.

This historical fiction incorporates relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people at a time when prospectors discover metal deposits under the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario in 2007. These findings lure an American company and force politicians to confront their legal duties in the consultation of Indigenous Peoples on developing their traditional territories.

Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness is a well-researched, provocative piece on Northern resources and opens up a variety of discussions of issues that are still real and present in 2023.

Herfferman’s novel will be available at Indigo and Amazon, as well as at many other distributors.

“Bad Cree” by Jessica Johns

By Indigenous-Canadian author Jessica Johns, a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta, this novel was initially an award-winning short story and is now a full-length novel. It incorporates elements of the horror genre mixed with magical realism. The story follows a young Cree woman “whose dreams lead her toward self-discovery and eventually seep into reality.” Currently, this novel has four stars on Goodreads and many have described it as beautifully-written, touching upon heavy themes in Canada’s Indigenous history while putting a focus on dreams, which can hold intense significance within Cree culture.

Bad Cree was published on Jan. 10, 2023, and is currently available on Amazon for purchase.

Are these titles not capturing your interest? Don’t worry! There are hundreds more Canadian novels out there, such as On the Ravine by Vincent Lam, Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay or The Fake by Zoe Whittall. Without a doubt, one is sure to spark your interest and make your heart warm and full no matter the weather. 

A literary world of wonder: The 2022 Toronto Book Awards

After a 2-year hiatus, the 48th Toronto Book Awards returns in-person to celebrate this year’s 5 shortlisted books

By: Shaki Sutharsan

The five shortlisted authors stand in a row with their awards. Toronto City Councillor Paul Ainslie stands at the far left.

City Councillor Paul Ainslie (far left) with the shortlisted authors for the 2022 Toronto Book Awards. From left to right: Adrienne Shadd (The Underground Railroad, Next Stop, Toronto!), Sarah Polley (Run Towards the Danger, winner), H.N. Khan (Wrong Side of the Court), Falen Johnson (Two Indians) and Camilla Gibb (The Relatives). (Courtesy of City of Toronto)

The Toronto Reference Library has always been a safe haven for me. I can lose myself among the stacks for hours or scatter my creative menagerie out onto one of the tables by the windows. On Nov. 16, I aimed to step inside the library to attend the 48th annual Toronto Book Awards, the soles of my shoes slipping against the pavement as I scrambled to escape the bitter cold that had settled in the city this past November.

The Toronto Book Awards have been taking place in the city since 1974. The award, which offers $10,000 in prize money for the winner with each shortlisted author receiving $1,000, was first established to recognize the “literary merit” of novels that made a significant contribution to the city’s cultural landscape in the past year.

 This year, the awards received 73 submissions. The shortlisted novels and the winner were selected by a jury comprised of past shortlisted author Ann Y.K. Choi, poet Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, author Phillip Dwight Morgan, retired Toronto librarian Margaret Henry and Indigenous educator Brenda Wastasecoot.

Shivering inside the foyer of the library, I hauled myself into the elevator and headed to the second floor without stopping to consult the directory posted by the elevator bank – I’d been a frequent visitor since I was 10-years-old. When my parents had first taken me there, I remember craning my neck up to marvel at the cavernous walls of the library, bouncing excitedly in place at the thought of someday becoming one of the tired-looking students hunched over their laptop. 

Now firmly planted in the shoes of those bleary-eyed college students, I stepped off the elevator on the second floor, lugging my backpack into the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, where the awards ceremony was taking place that evening. I stepped inside, feeling like an imposter, eyeing the wide wooden platform spanning the front of the room and the podium on top of it with second-hand trepidation.

The Appel Salon stretched back towards the bar and the refreshments table. Chairs were arranged into neat rows facing the stage and were already filling up with attendees. It seemed like I was one of the youngest people there, and I felt woefully inadequate. What did I know about literature? I was a rookie, still hesitant to tell people my ambitions as an author myself. I didn’t feel like I was allowed to call myself one yet.

As the crowd’s chatter began to hit a wall, a hush settled over the room as Ismail Alfa, the host of CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, took the stage.

“You’ll have to excuse me this evening if I pause every once in a while,” Alfa began with a grin as he stood behind the podium. “It’s just me kind of soaking in the energy of real people being in the same room as me.” 

A smatter of laughter drifted through the crowd and I found myself nodding along emphatically. Over the last two years, I’d almost forgotten that there are real people who exist beyond BookTok and enjoy novels as much as I do.

A heavy silence fell over the crowd when the first of the five shortlisted authors, Camilla Gibb, took the stage to read a passage from her novel, The Relatives. Gibb painted a solemn picture of Lila, the first character introduced in one of three intersecting storylines in the book. Lila is a social worker in Toronto assigned to a case where a young girl has been found wandering High Park in her pyjamas. 

I was taken back to afternoons in Grade 2 spent sitting on the carpet in front of my teacher, stricken with awe as I found myself enraptured with the story she was reading to us that day. I hadn’t felt that same feeling in years —- of being entirely lost in a story that I wasn’t reading on my own.

There is something soul-binding about having an artist share their work with you. It creates an intimacy that you would be hard-pressed to experience elsewhere. Whether it’s an artist’s exhibit of their work carefully put together or any instance of live music, the shared moment of artistic vulnerability and its subsequent reverence can be breathtaking.

When you sit in front of an author as they read from a story they’ve crafted and grown over months or possibly years, it can feel like they’re giving you a part of their heart. 

One by one, the other shortlisted authors – Falen Johnson, H.N. Khan, Sarah Polley and Adrienne Shadd – took to the stage to read from their own work. In the words they shared, I felt their vulnerability and allowed myself to sink into my own.

Johnson, a Mohawk and Tuscarora playwright and the host of CBC podcast, Buffy, said in a post-event interview that she’d never considered herself to be a writer. “I didn’t think I was smart enough to do it. I felt like it had to be done in a really specific way and that world wasn’t for me.”

At the event, Johnson read from her play, Two Indians, about what she described to be a “common experience” on reserves across Canada and the United States.

“Car accidents are a bit of an epidemic in our communities. We lose people … there was an accident that affected some people in my family and I wanted to look into that and try and find some healing in that,” Johnson said before reading an exchange between two characters in her play. 

Khan, a Pakistani-Canadian first-time author who grew up in Regent Park, read a passage from Wrong Side of the Court. His debut novel tells the story of 15-year-old Fawad Chaudhry as he navigates his love for basketball, his father’s death and his mother’s desire to arrange a marriage for him to his first cousin in Pakistan.

“This is a way for me to fantasize myself about two things I love: basketball and my mother’s cooking,” the author shared. 

Polley, who was awarded the 2022 Toronto Book Award for her memoir, Run Towards the Danger, joked about her book being “a series of personal essays that are written with the intention of making you feel really sorry for me.” The autobiographical memoir examines post-traumatic memory and our relationships with our bodies. On Jan. 13, Polley’s film, Women Talking, was released in theatres. 

Finally, Shadd read from an updated version of the book that she had written with the collaboration of Afua Cooper and Karolyn Smardz Frost, The Underground Railroad, Next Stop, Toronto! The passage told a poignant true story about two couples that made their way to Canada through the Underground Railroad.

As an aspiring author, I felt a sense of community in that room. I no longer felt out of place or intimidated. I realized this was a home for all readers, regardless of age or literary expertise. Similar to the library itself, it was a cultural centrepiece that, at its core, bred a love for storytelling and authentic learning. 

Johnson said she tells young writers to embrace being a storyteller. “We all have stories ... try not to be intimidated by whatever preconceived notions about what the publishing world is like, what the literary world is like.”

When I left the Toronto Reference Library later that evening, with a signed copy of The Relatives cradled against my chest, I knew that I’d just witnessed a glimpse of what the real literary world looked like and it was nothing like I’d imagined. As I walked away from the setting of a myriad of my literary dreams, Johnson’s words reverberated quietly within me:

“Write your story, write your voice, because if you try to put those expectations on yourself of what you think it should be…, which I've been guilty of doing, it'll just stifle you.”

Check out a live stream of the full event below: