Canadian Books

*Longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize*

From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class. An intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.

"One of the greatest novels I have ever read." RITA BULLWINKEL
"A knockout: every punch lands." ELEANOR CATTON

Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound depth. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complicated power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.
     As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.
     Told over a single day, with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.

In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse.

Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.

Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe’s luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe’s seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but.

Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.

Liann Zhang is a second-generation Chinese Canadian who splits her time between Vancouver, British Columbia and Toronto, Ontario. After a short stint as a skincare content creator, she graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in psychology and criminology. Julie Chan Is Dead is her first novel.

The freedom to read is under attack.

From the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves.

Rupi Kaur's Writing Prompts Balance card deck is an invitation to discover what balance means to you.

Rupi Kaur invites you to explore the concept of balance in your life with a thoughtfully curated deck of 70 writing prompts meant to encourage a deeper connection with yourself. While focusing on the theme of balance, use this card deck as a part of your daily ritual to inspire creativity and growth.

Examples of the prompts include:

• What does a balanced life look like for the people closest to you? Has this affected your definition of balance?
• Do you make time for rest? Why or why not?
• Write a letter to yourself about what you’ve accomplished in your career, relationships, or social life.
• What steps can you take to reduce burnout?

We hope it becomes a tool for you to continue discovering more about your inner and outer worlds, and a light to help navigate you through it all.

From the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party—Jagmeet Singh—comes a personal and heartfelt story about family and overcoming adversity.

In October 2017, Jagmeet Singh was elected as the first visible minority to lead a major federal political party in Canada. The historic milestone was celebrated across the nation.

About a month earlier, in the lead up to his election, Jagmeet held community meet-and-greets across Canada. At one such event, a disruptive heckler in the crowd hurled accusations at him. Jagmeet responded by calmly calling for all Canadians to act with “love and courage” in the face of hate. That response immediately went viral, and people across the country began asking, “Who is Jagmeet Singh? And why ‘love and courage’?”

This personal and heartfelt memoir is Jagmeet’s answer to that question. In it, we are invited to walk with him through childhood to adulthood as he learns powerful, moving, and sometimes traumatic lessons about hardship, addiction, and the impact of not belonging. We meet his strong family, including his mother, who teaches him that “we are all one; we are all connected,” a valuable lesson that has shaped who he is today.

This story is not a political memoir. This is a story of family, love, and courage, and how strengthening the connection between us all is the way to building a better world.

Secret Path is a ten song digital download album by Gord Downie with a graphic novel by illustrator Jeff Lemire that tells the story of Chanie “Charlie” Wenjack, a twelve-year-old boy who died in flight from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School fifty years ago.

Secret Path is a ten song digital download album by Gord Downie with a graphic novel by illustrator Jeff Lemire that tells the story of Chanie “Charlie” Wenjack, a twelve-year-old boy who died in flight from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School fifty years ago.

Chanie, misnamed Charlie by his teachers, was a young boy who died on October 22, 1966, walking the railroad tracks, trying to escape from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School to return home. Chanie’s home was 400 miles away. He didn’t know that. He didn’t know where it was, nor how to find it, but, like so many kids—more than anyone will be able to imagine—he tried.

Chanie’s story is Canada’s story. We are not the country we thought we were. History will be rewritten. We are all accountable. Secret Path acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history—the long suppressed mistreatment of Indigenous children and families by the residential school system—with the hope of starting our country on a road to reconciliation. Every year as we remember Chanie Wenjack, the hope for Secret Path is that it educates all Canadians young and old on this omitted part of our history, urging our entire nation to play an active role in the preservation of Indigenous lives and culture in Canada.

The next hundred years are going to be painful as we come to know Chanie Wenjack and thousands like him—as we find out about ourselves, about all of us—but only when we do can we truly call ourselves, “Canada.”

Join one of TikTok’s most comforting creators and his trusty blender and make any day a Milkshake Monday

Who doesn’t crave a delicious dose of nostalgia after a long day? Nothing soothes the soul quite like an old-fashioned indulgence, and TikTok’s Larry Canam (The Spirit Alchemist) has provided millions of viewers with just that. 

Every week, viewers flock to Larry's channel for the latest installment in his crowd-pleasing Milkshake Monday series, in which he takes viewers through each step in the process of preparing a tasty, often whimsical, milkshake for themselves.

Larry is now bringing this series to a new platform with this cookbook of over 80 milkshake recipes and a number of additional recipes for syrups and sauces, all with QR codes to bring readers back to the videos that put Larry and his blender on the milkshake map.

Take a seat at Larry’s bar as he serves up quick-and-easy, delicious milkshakes in an array of creative flavors. In this book, you’ll find milkshakes inspired by everything from the classics to nostalgic cereals, candy, chocolate bars, and desserts. Discover satisfying delights in a chapter of protein shake recipes or indulge in a boozy creation from the happy hour chapter. And all the favorites are here, such as the Handmade Peanut Butter Milkshake and the Tim Tam Milkshake.

Larry truly has something for everyone.

Sit back and enjoy—just don’t forget to add a straw!

A treasure trove of new poems by one of our most sought-after poets: poems that range from descriptions of the Detroit of her childhood to her current life on Cape Cod, from deep appreciations of the natural world to elegies for lost friends and relationships, from a vision of her Jewish heritage to a hard-hitting take on today’s political ironies.