Canadian Books
Canadian Books
Best Canadian Poetry 2026
Regular price $24.95Selected by editor Mary Dalton, the 2026 edition of Best Canadian Poetry showcases the best Canadian poetry writing published in the past year.
Featuring introductions by Mary Dalton and series editor Anita Lahey, Best Canadian Poetry 2026 offers a collection of brief but impactful glimpses into our current literary landscape, that expands our worldview and continues in the series tradition of asking: What constitutes a great poem?
Featuring:
John Wall Barger • Ronna Bloom • Nicholas Bradley • Petra Chambers • Carolina Corcoran • Kayla Czaga • Danielle Devereaux • Irina Dumitrescu • Puneet Dutt • Darrell Epp • Susan Glickman • Ariel Gordon • Jennifer Gossoo • Sue Goyette • Richard Greene • Glenn Hayes • Henry Heavyshield • Dave Hickey • Nancy Huggett • Kevin Irie • Emily Kedar • Conor Kerr • Evelyn Lau • Sylvia Legris • Steve McOrmond • Estlin McPhee • M.W. Miller • Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi • George Moore • Paul Moorehead • A.F. Moritz • Megan Morrison • Erín Moure • Cassandra Myers • Shane Neilson • Nofel • David O’Meara • John O’Neill • Michael Ondaatje • Craig Francis Power • John Reibetanz • Ozayr Saloojee • Vivek Sharma • Sue Sinclair • Karen Solie • Misha Solomon • Susan White • Erin Wilson • Jaeyun Yoo • Patricia Young
Praise for Best Canadian Poetry
“A magnet, I think, for the many people who would like to know contemporary poetry.”
—A.F. Moritz, Griffin Poetry Prize winner
“The wide range of writers, forms and themes represented here make it a great jumping-off point for readers who might be interested in Canadian poetry but are unsure about where to start.”
—Globe and Mail
“One of the gifts America gave Canadian poetry was Molly Peacock, a famed poet who, upon arrival in Toronto, originated the Best Canadian Poetry series, transplanting your grand tradition here . . . You might not be able to get the news from this book, exactly, but you can find that which will keep you from corruption yourself.”
—Shane Neilson, Washington Independent Review of Books
“One of the best things about the end of the year is having a chance to look back. The three Best Canadian volumes . . . are a snapshot of some of the finest in Canadian writing this year.”
—Robert J. Wiersema, Toronto Star
“Buy it, or borrow it, but do read it.”
—Arc Poetry Magazine
“[These] books are must-haves for libraries, schools, and intellectually well-intentioned bedside nightstands across the country.”
—Quill & Quire
We Breed Lions: Confronting Canada's Troubled Hockey Culture
Regular price $38.00_________________
STEPHEN BRUNT is an award-winning writer and broadcaster for Sportsnet, and the co-host of The FAN 590’s Writers Bloc with Jeff Blair and Richard Deitsch. He is the author of the #1 national bestselling Searching for Bobby Orr and All the Way, with Jordin Tootoo. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and in Winterhouse Brook, Newfoundland.
Maple Syrup: A Short History of Canada's Sweetest Obsession
Regular price $36.95The captivating story behind Canada’s beloved sweet treat
From the quiet beauty of sugar maple forests to the high-tech, high-stakes world of syrup production, this book takes you on a remarkable journey into one of Canada’s most cherished traditions. Led by Peter Kuitenbrouwer, a forester with a deep appreciation for the land, this beautifully illustrated narrative uncovers the rich Indigenous heritage of maple syrup, explores its cultural significance and reveals the complex industry that sustains it today, where vast warehouses store a product so valuable it became the target of the Great Maple Syrup Heist, one of Canada’s most infamous thefts.
Blending history, culture and science in a story that stretches from eastern Canada and into the northeastern US, Maple Syrup stands as a testament to the resilience, communal joy and economic intricacies that define maple syrup, and is the perfect read for anyone who loves Canada, its heritage and the irresistible taste of spring.
Rupi Kaur Trilogy Boxed Set
Regular price $40.00 Sale price $32.00Available for the first time, #1 New York Times bestselling author, Rupi Kaur, presents a gorgeous boxed set of her books milk and honey and the sun and her flowers.
Global sensation and internationally renowned author rupi kaur’s milk and honey celebrates the challenges and triumphs facing the modern woman. In strikingly personal, yet widely relatable poems accompanied by original illustrations, Kaur challenges the idea that women should be quiet, gentle, and submissive and instead encourages women to be strong, powerful, and proud. Each of the four chapters (“the hurting,” “the loving,” “the breaking,” and “the healing”) serves a different purpose and explores the many kinds of pain and healing of life’s experiences. From breakups to trauma, kaur leads readers through life’s most bitter moments to find their hidden sweetness.
Paired with milk and honey in this exquisite boxed set: the sun and her flowers, a vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honouring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself. Divided into five chapters and illustrated in kaur’s signature style, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.
Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir by Norm MacDonald
Regular price $13.99Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
Wild, dangerous, and flat-out unbelievable, here is the incredible #1 bestselling memoir of the Canadian actor, gambler, and raconteur, and one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time.
A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
As this book’s title suggests, Norm Macdonald tells the story of his life—more or less—from his origins on a farm in the backwoods of Ontario and an epically disastrous appearance on Star Search to his account of auditioning for Lorne Michaels and his memorable run as the anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live—until he was fired because a corporate executive didn’t think he was funny. But Based on a True Story is much more than just a memoir; it’s the hilarious, inspired epic of Norm’s life.
In dispatches from a road trip to Las Vegas (part of a plan hatched to regain the fortune he’d lost to sports betting and other vices) with his sidekick and enabler, Adam Eget, Norm recounts the milestone moments, the regrets, the love affairs, the times fortune smiled on his life, and the times it refused to smile. As the clock ticks down, Norm’s debt reaches record heights, and he must find a way to evade the hefty price that’s been placed on his head by one of the most dangerous loan sharks in the country.
As a comedy legend should, Norm peppers these pages with classic jokes and long-mythologized Hollywood stories. This wildly adventurous, totally original, and absurdly funny saga turns the conventional “comic’s memoir” on its head and gives the reader an exclusive pass inside the mad, glorious mind of Norm Macdonald.
“Brilliant . . . Macdonald’s willingness to take risks pays off mightily . . . The best new book I’ve read this year or last.” — Wall Street Journal
“Darkly hilarious.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Norm is brilliant and thoughtful, and there is sensitivity and creative insight in his observations and stories. . . . I seriously f**king love Norm Macdonald. Please buy his book. He probably needs the cash. He’s really bad with money.” — Louis C.K., from the foreword
“Norm is one of my all-time favorites, and this book was such a great read I forgot how lonely I was for a while.” — Amy Schumer
“I always thought Normie’s stand-up was the funniest thing there was. But this book gives it a run for its money.” — Adam Sandler
“Norm is one of the greatest stand-up comics who’s ever worked--a totally original voice. His sense of the ridiculous and his use of juxtaposition in his writing make him a comic’s comic. We all love Norm.” — Roseanne Barr
“Norm Macdonald makes me laugh my ass off. Who is funnier than Norm Macdonald? Nobody.” — Judd Apatow
“Norm only has to grunt to make me laugh. And this book is 256 pages? Sign me up.” — Sophia Amoruso, author of #GIRLBOSS
“Norm is a double threat. His material and timing are both top-notch, which is unheard of. He is one of my favorites, both on- and off-stage.” — Dave Attell
“David Letterman said it best: There is no one funnier than Norm Macdonald.” — Rob Schneider
“Norm Macdonald is an American treasure. No value has been placed on him. He’s a one and only. Can’t wait to read this book.” — Larry King
“Norm Macdonald is one of the great original comic minds of our era: utterly unique in thought, word, and delivery. He provokes me to think about the world as frequently as he makes me laugh at it.” — Ken Tucker
“Hilarious and filled with turns of phrase and hidden beauty like only a collection of Norm Macdonald stories could be.” — Esquire
“A driving, wild and hilarious ramble of a book, what might have happened had Hunter S. Thompson embedded himself in a network studio.” — Washington Post
“Part personal history and part meta riff on celebrity memoirs, the book, it quickly becomes clear, is also just partly true (and all hilarious).” — Vulture
“Disorienting, funny, sometimes stupid, and often wildly beautiful . . . Macdonald is a pretty extraordinary wordsmith, capable of working in an impressive range of styles and genres.” — The Week
“This book is absurd fiction. . . . Scathing and funny.” — New York Times
“Based on a True Story is honest about its various dishonesties. . . . [Macdonald] also flexes his trademark ambling, shaggy-dog storytelling, teasing a crowd-pleasing joke about answering machines that he never actually tells and transcribing his marathon ‘moth joke’ in its lengthy entirety.” — The Globe and Mail
“A book that both isn’t a celebrity memoir and is, arguably, the best celebrity memoir ever written.” — AV Club
The Paris Express
Regular price $23.99#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From the author of Room, The Wonder, and The Pull of the Stars comes a taut and suspenseful historical novel that reimagines an 1895 French railway disaster, an event famously documented in dramatic photographs
The Paris Express is set over a single day, as the morning train travels from the Normandy coast to the capital. Men, women, and children from all over the world take their seats in the passenger cars, which are divided by wealth and status. Among the passengers is an anarchist intent on destruction, a young boy travelling alone, a pregnant woman fleeing her home village for the anonymity of the big city, a medical student who suspects a girl may have a fatal disease, and the railway crew, devoted to the train, to the company, and to each other.
Based on an 1895 catastrophe that was captured in a series of surreal photographs, The Paris Express is a thrilling ride and a literary masterpiece full of the politics, fears, and chaos of an era not unlike our own.
“Donoghue's talents are at such glorious heights in this novel, the reader feels as though they are on the titular train, bustling next to strangers, staring out the window, and hurtling towards Paris. And it's near impossible to put the book down until it reaches its final destination. Donoghue beautifully crafts a world that captures the vitality and smells and sights of Victorian France, while investigating the different classes who inhabited the same spaces, but lived worlds apart....Donoghue's train is a microcosm of Paris of the times, ready to explode.” — Heather O’Neill, author of The Capital of Dreams
“Captivating! Emma Donoghue writes in rich, luxuriant detail, yet the story moves at a exhilarating clip. The Paris Express brings big questions about human interconnectedness into an edge-of-your-seat historical thriller that I couldn’t put down.”— — Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
"Clever, ambitious, and richly researched. A slice of 1890s Paris that makes us see that our modern problems aren’t so modern after all! The Paris Express is a smartly structured novel that ratchets up the pace until it's hurtling along as fast as the doomed train itself." — Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
“Donoghue establishes an intricate web of human relationships as the narrative speeds toward an unexpected yet plausible finale….Readers ought to jump on board.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A tension-filled panorama of fin-de-siècle French society.” — New York Times
"Indian" in the Cabinet
Regular price $21.00THE #1 BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY
A compelling political memoir of leadership and speaking truth to power by one of the most inspiring women of her generation
Jody Wilson-Raybould was raised to be a leader. Inspired by the example of her grandmother, who persevered throughout her life to keep alive the governing traditions of her people, and raised as the daughter of a hereditary chief and Indigenous leader, Wilson-Raybould always knew she would take on leadership roles and responsibilities. She never anticipated, however, that those roles would lead to a journey from her home community of We Wai Kai in British Columbia to Ottawa as Canada’s first Indigenous Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the Cabinet of then newly elected prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
Wilson-Raybould’s experience in Trudeau’s Cabinet reveals important lessons about how we must continue to strengthen our political institutions and culture, and the changes we must make to meet challenges such as racial justice and climate change. As her initial optimism about the possibilities of enacting change while in Cabinet shifted to struggles over inclusivity, deficiencies of political will, and concerns about adherence to core principles of our democracy, Wilson-Raybould stood on principle and, ultimately, resigned. In standing her personal and professional ground and telling the truth in front of the nation, Wilson-Raybould demonstrated the need for greater independence and less partisanship in how we govern.
“Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power is the story of why Wilson-Raybould got into federal politics, her experience as an Indigenous leader sitting around the Cabinet table, her proudest achievements, the very public SNC-Lavalin affair, and how she got out and moved forward. Now sitting as an Independent Member in Parliament, Wilson-Raybould believes there is a better way to govern and a better way for politics—one that will make a better country for all.
"A thoughtful and respectful memoir. . . . Wilson-Raybould describes how public policy plays out within an established institutional context, and shares her own powerful personal encounters. . . .This book is Wilson-Raybould’s plea that Canadians not take our institutions for granted, nor allow complacency to lead us into a collective malaise as we face the challenges of the future." — Jury Citation, Writers' Trust Balsillie Prize for Public Policy
“It’s a page-turner — well written and well paced.” — Calgary Herald
"[Wilson-Raybould] holds a mirror up for us and what we see is a nation shocked out of our comfortable pews. . . . It is time to address wounds that cannot be negotiated scar by scar through civil contracts and redefine ourselves in the deep language of holy laws that transcend politics and religion. It is time to do what is right." — The British Columbia Review
"An excellent read." — The Literary Review of Canada
The Cree Word for Love
Regular price $34.99Bestselling author of Birdie, Tracey Lindberg, and renowned artist George Littlechild join together in a stunning collaboration of story and art to explore love in all its forms—romantic, familial, community and kin—in the Cree experience
In The Cree Word for Love, author Tracey Lindberg and artist George Littlechild consider a teaching from an Elder that in their culture, the notion of love as constructed in Western society does not exist. Here, through original fiction and select iconic paintings, Lindberg and Littlechild respond.
Together they have created and curated this collaboration which travels, season by season, mirroring the four rounds in ceremony, through the themes of the love within a family, ties of kinship, desire for romantic love and connection, strength in the face of loss and violence, and importance of self-love, as well as, crucially, a deeper exploration of the meaning of “all my relations.”
Together, art and story inspire and move readers to recall our responsibilities to our human and more than human relations, to think about the obligation that is love, and to imagine what it could possibly mean to have no Cree word for love. The result is a powerful story about where we find connection, strength, and the many forms of what it means to live lovingly.
Tahini Baby
Regular price $45.00Look Ma, No Hands
Regular price $24.95Missing From The Village
Regular price $23.00Hunter Chef in the Wild
Regular price $45.00The Late-Night Witches
Regular price $25.99Moon Road
Regular price $26.00A Taste of Prince Edward County
Regular price $29.95We Used to Live Here
Regular price $34.99From an author “destined to become a titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), a haunting debut—soon to be a Netflix original movie—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit.
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.
As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?
This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it” (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).
Wood, Fire & Smoke
Regular price $40.00On Book Banning
Regular price $21.95The 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.
Praise for On Book Banning
“Though book banning is usually associated with repressive or conservative mindsets—ancient Rome, or Florida moms—even classic texts have fallen prey of late to a ‘censorship consensus’ enforced by liberal-minded gatekeepers. In the latest in Biblioasis’s continuing Field Notes series, Wells seeks to define the controversial practice and explore its effects.”
—Globe and Mail
“A concise, exquisite, and tidy inquiry into our common desire to protect against the other. Wells serves up a masterful and provocative treatise about the nature of free speech and the power of the written word.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
“Both important and urgent [and] its value enduring . . . I can only hope that it will find its way to libraries across the land.”
—The Miramichi Reader
“Timely and relevant, balanced and engaging.”
—Marcie McCauley, Buried In Print
“What emerges in this deceptively slim and powerful volume is the voice of a devoted reader—On Book Banning is a testament to the life-altering power of books and ideas.”
—Quill & Quire (starred review)
“A thoughtful, conversationally written reflection on why banning books damages the fabric of social belonging.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Beneath the elegant prose of this small volume lies a vast urgency and passion about language, books, and human consciousness. The hot-button political debates—about freedom of thought and the value of open access, and the depredations of governments and activists to control both—are set against a background of deep yearning for connection between minds. Wells has given us a wise and powerful example of that very thing.”
—Mark Kingwell, author of Question Authority: A Polemic about Trust in Five Meditations
“In this impressive book, Ira Wells provides an insightful and engaging discussion of the renewed embrace of censorship by both progressives and traditionalists and what it can mean for the possibility of building a more socially just and democratic society today. On Book Banning is a gem that I cannot recommend highly enough.”
—James L. Turk, Director, Centre for Free Expression, Toronto Metropolitan University
“Wells does a good job of illustrating how the new censorship consensus has brought left and right together in a push to suppress or eliminate voices and volumes they deem dangerous, immoral, or otherwise unsavoury . . . These self-appointed protectors of morality and intellectual curiosity on both sides of the political spectrum have eroded the liberal ideal of free expression and ushered in a new era of censorship by another name. By calling it out for what it is, Wells does a valuable service.”
—Steven W. Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag
We Could Be Rats
Regular price $24.99Instant Bestseller
A moving story about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.
Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society.
But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta’s friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward.
What unfolds is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.
Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Regular price $23.00LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025
“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.
