Books

What does it mean to be a Canadian? What great ideas have changed our country? An award-winning writer casts her eye over our nation’s history, highlighting some of our most important stories.

From the acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray comes a richly rewarding book about what it means to be Canadian. Readers already know Gray as an award-winning biographer, a writer who has brilliantly captured significant individuals and dramatic moments in our history. Now, in The Promise of Canada, she weaves together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians, creating a unique history of our country.

What do these people—from George-Étienne Cartier and Emily Carr to Tommy Douglas, Margaret Atwood, and Elijah Harper—have in common? Each, according to Charlotte Gray, has left an indelible mark on Canada. Deliberately avoiding a top-down approach to history, Gray has chosen Canadians—some well-known, others less so—whose ideas, she argues, have become part of our collective conversation about who we are as a people. She also highlights many other Canadians from all walks of life who have added to the ongoing debate, showing how our country has reinvented itself in every generation since Confederation, while at the same time holding to certain central beliefs.

Beautifully illustrated with evocative black-and-white historical images and colorful artistic visions, and written in an engaging style, The Promise of Canada is a fresh, thoughtful, and inspiring view of our historical journey. Opening doors into our past, present, and future with this masterful work, Charlotte Gray makes Canada’s history come alive and challenges us to envision the country we want to live in.

About the Author

Charlotte Gray, one of Canada’s pre-eminent biographers and historians, has won many awards for her work, including the prestigious Pierre Berton Award for a body of historical writing, the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, the Ottawa Book Award, the Toronto Book Award, and the CAA Birks Family Foundation Award for Biography. Over nine superb biographies, from Mrs. King and Sisters in the Wilderness to The Massey Murder, and masterful books such as The Museum Called Canada and Canada: A Portrait in Letters, she has brought our past to vivid life. Gray is a Member of the Order of Canada and was a panelist on the 2013 edition of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. She lives in Ottawa.

Carol is tired of listening to her bossy toad hat -- until a pigeon carries it away! This delightful picture book from Ooko creator Esmé Shapiro is a quirky and funny fable about overcoming self-doubt and finding your inner voice.

In the big city, people wear all kinds of hats. Not everyone wears a toad as a hat, but some people do . . . and some of those toad hats can be VERY bossy! Carol has always followed the orders of her demanding toad hat at the expense of her own inner voice. But when her toad hat is plucked away by a pigeon, how will Carol know what to do? After spending so long being told what to eat and do and paint, Carol's not sure what SHE wants, and nothing feels quite right. Feeling lost, she creates a new hat -- a toad made out of pickles and eggs -- to help guide her. Even though her new pickle-toad doesn't make a sound, Carol can hear it loud and clear! But when a pigeon takes away THAT hat too, Carol begins to understand that there is a big, booming voice that lives inside herself . . . and that it's well worth listening to!

For any reader who's doubted their own voice and talents, or felt like a bossy friend or family member is always drowning them out, Carol and the Pickle-Toad is an inspiring invitation to listen to your own heart and stand on your own two feet -- even better if you're wearing very tall boots.

Megabat wants to help his Daniel earn some money. But how? Easy! Become a STAR. The fifth laugh-out-loud book in this sweet and funny chapter book series featuring a talking bat, now available in paperback.

Daniel's allowance is not going to cover the cost to fix his dad's phone screen, which he and Megabat broke. And he is out of ideas. Megabat has a GREAT idea: become famous! Famous people have lots of money.

Daniel is also grounded, and being stuck inside is pretty boring. Megabat has no time to spend with bored Daniel, he's too busy learning the skill that will make him famous and rich.

Daniel really doesn't like Megabat's new catchphrase, or his fancy new hairdo. Megabat will show him!

When Megabat takes things too far and ruins Daniel's mom's dinner party with his "magic show," chaos ensues . . . and Daniel is not too happy. And Megabat learns there are some things that are more important than fame and riches. Kris Easler's adorable illustrations paired with Anna Humphrey's hilarious text make for another unforgettable Megabat adventure, one that will appeal to Megabat fans and newcomers!

Selected by editor Steven W. Beattie, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Stories showcases the best Canadian fiction writing published in 2023.

Featuring:

Chris Bailey • Christine Birbalsingh • Cody Caetano • Kate Cayley • Lynn Coady • Caitlin Galway • Marcel Goh • Beth Goobie • Mark Anthony Jarman • Saad Omar Khan • Chelsea Peters • Kawai Shen • Liz Stewart • Glenna Turnbull • Catriona Wright • Clea Young

Selected by editor Aislinn Hunter, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Poetry showcases the best Canadian poetry writing published in 2023.

Featuring:

Hollie Adams • George Amabile • Erin Bedford • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Bertrand Bickersteth • Elisabeth Blair • Ronna Bloom • Alison Braid-Fernandez • Robert Bringhurst • Emily Cann • Anne Carson • Molly Cross-Blanchard • Lorna Crozier • Kayla Czaga • Evelyna Ekoko-Kay • Kate Genevieve • Susan Gillis • Sue Goyette • Catherine Graham • Henry Heavyshield • Gerald Hill • Alexander Hollenberg • Kim June Johnson • Eve Joseph • Evelyn Lau • Y. S. Lee • D. A. Lockhart • Fareh Malik • David Martin • Domenica Martinello • Cassidy McFadzean • Carmelita McGrath • Erín Moure • Tolu Oloruntoba • Catherine Owen • Molly Peacock • Miranda Pearson • Pauline Peters • Amanda Proctor • Shannon Quinn • Armand Garnet Ruffo • Anne Simpson • Carolyn Smart • Karen Solie • Catherine St. Denis • Owen Torrey • Michael Trussler • Sara Truuvert • Rob Winger • Jaeyun Yoo

Selected by editor Emily Urquhart, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Essays showcases the best Canadian nonfiction writing published in 2023.

Featuring:

Katherine Ashenburg • James Cairns • Mitchell Consky • Michelle Cyca • Sadiqa de Meijer • Ariel Gordon • Lana Hall • Helen Humphreys • Rebecca Kempe • Jiin Kim • Christine Lai • Jessica Moore • Tom Rachman • Leanne Betasamosake Simpson • Vance Wright

Aria Ramdeen is learning to love herself — and her favourite foods — again. No guilt, no toxic boyfriend. Full of newfound confidence, she subscribes to LoveinTO, a Toronto-based dating website, where she’s matched with a crush she’s had for years: the attractive light-haired man who lives in her building. Aria messages him on the app, but there’s no response, leaving her quite embarrassed.

Rob Anderson, who’s recently divorced, secretly admires Aria. He just lacks the confidence to approach her. And since he’s let his LoveinTO sub­scription lapse, he doesn’t see Aria’s message. Suddenly, Aria seems guard­ed when they run into one another, and the pair endure months of long, awkward silences together in the elevator. Until one day, Rob decides to give the app another chance and subscribes again.

A fresh and entertaining modern story of two people from different back­grounds who find each other despite the pitfalls of dating technology, opin­ions from friends and family, and their own personal trauma. The Elevator will leave readers feeling hopeful about love, food and life in a big city.

Praise for The Elevator

Aria and Rob share a look and an attraction, but their lives are complicated, and connection doesn’t come easy. The world doesn’t pause for a look, though they-and we-wish it would. The Elevator is a warm, thoughtful, realistic novel of all the things that hold us back from love, from trauma and tough parents to bad timing, but also the kind friends, humour, and hamburgers that sustain us in the search for a partner. Love comes for Rob and Aria the way it does for most of us-in the middle of everything else.— Rebecca Rosenblum, These Days are Numbered, So Much Love

In The Elevator, Ramsingh crafts a poignant portrayal of the weariness of the modern dating world, steeped with missed opportunities, misguided intimacy, and a complex relationship with food. Brimming with vivid sensory details, Ramsingh centers a cast of characters both earnest and vulnerable in this engaging, compulsively readable story.—Deepa Rajagopalan, Peacocks of Instagram

Priya Ramsingh’s superpower as a novelist is the ability to create authentic and empathetic characters. She did it with Brown Girl in the Room and now with The Elevator. I found myself rooting for Aria and Rob. I cringed as they tried to navigate the world of dating apps, agonized over bad dates and self doubt and then I eagerly awaited the next chance encounter. — Scott Colby, best-selling author and opinion page editor at the Toronto Star

“Truthfully I can only tell you what’s missing” writes the heartbroken protagonist at the beginning of Victoria Mbabazi’s The Siren in the Twelfth House. But this isn’t a book that succumbs to grief. Mbabazi’s poems are siren songs, reclaiming love from pain, and rediscovering joy through the destruction and eventual rebuilding of astrological houses. Prepare to slow dance through this profound and powerful debut.

Praise for The Siren in the Twelfth House:

The Siren in the Twelfth House combines meta-allegory with a strident exploration of the vicissitudes of love and companionship. Its anthropomorphic signs bring the astrological into the quotidian, a logic to randomness of experience, and a symphony from the 12 orchestral sections of the skies. As we trace the transformation of the titular siren, we cannot help but have our own gazes and capacities for orphic interpretation sharpened as well.—Tolu Oloruntoba, The Junta of Happenstance, and Each One a Furnace

With a sweeping grace and theatrical, cinematic flare, Victoria Mbabazi writes us into the delicious tropes and archetypes of astrology—from the signs to the houses to the transits—with the careful, precise eye of a poet. Siren in the Twelfth House is bright with a familiar ancient fascination—what we have with the stars, with the sky and, most of all, with each other.—Sanna Wani, author of My Grief, the Sun

Apples on a Windowsill is a series of meditations on still life, photography, beauty, and marriage. Full of personal reflections, charming anecdotes, and the history behind the art of still lifes, this lyrical memoir takes us from Edmonton to Rome to museums all over North America as Lemay discusses the craft of writing, the ups and downs of being married to a painter, and her focus on living a life in art and in beauty. A must read for fans of The Flower Can Always Be Changing, Everything Affects Everyone, and Rumi and the Red Handbag.

Opening with an exit, the poems in Precedented Parroting accept no assumptions. With the determination and curiosity of a problem-solving crow, this expansive debut plumbs personal archives and traverses the natural world, endeavouring to shake the tight cage of stereotypes, Asian and avian. Praised as “lively and intelligent” and “lyrically delicious,” Barbara Tran’s poetry offers us both the keen eye and grace of a hawk, “red-tailed gliding / on time.”

Praise for Precedented Parroting:

Each poem in Precedented Parroting is a singular, sublime murmuration, their words swooping, shape-shifting, and thrumming with life.—Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt, Bitter in the Mouth, and The Sweetest Fruits

The rhythms and soundscapes in Precedented Parroting are virtuosic. They make me think of waves or air currents that memory, narrative, relationship, and emotion are set loose on. Feathers are composed of barbs, as loss is, observes Tran in the early pages of this book, one implication being that, like feathers, loss can both enable and necessitate flight. An immensely powerful, clear-eyed account of harm, dislocation, and survival through generations.—River Halen, author of Dream Rooms