The Globe 100: The best books of 2023

Every recommendation on this list has been selected by The Globe and Mail’s contributors and editors. If you choose to purchase any books through our links, The Globe and Mail may earn a commission.

International Fiction

August Blue, Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton) At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson has a breakdown and walks off the stage in Vienna mid-performance. Now she’s in Athens trying to figure out a new identity even as she catches glimpses of a doppelganger who seems to be following her.

Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Vintage) In this explosive debut novel – a finalist for the National Book Award – predominantly Black prisoners fight for survival in a dystopian world where a corporation streams their battles to a primetime television audience.

How to Build a Boat, Elaine Feeney (Biblioasis) The Irish novelist and poet’s second novel centres on a neuro-atypical boy called Jamie as he dreams of creating a perpetual-motion machine to connect with his mother, who died giving birth to him. When that proves untenable, a kindly shop teacher at his school gets him to help build a currach – a traditional Irish boat that will usefully serve as both vessel and metaphor.

Kairos, Jenny Erpenbeck (New Directions Publishing) Translated from German by Michael Hofmann, this exceptional novel tells the story of a May-December affair in the dying days of East Germany. With the Berlin Wall still intact, Katharina, 19, meets Hans, a married novelist in his 50s. The relationship turns controlling and abusive, infused with and mirroring the fraught history and geopolitics of the region.

Prophet Song, Paul Lynch (Grove Atlantic) Eilish Stack answers her front door one day to find two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police wanting to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Winner of this year’s Booker, the novel imagines what would happen if Ireland slipped into totalitarianism.

Restless Dolly Maunder, Kate Grenville (Canongate Books) The Booker-shortlisted author returns with a fictionalized account of her grandmother’s life, which began at the end of the 19th century. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly searching for love and independence.

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese (Grove Atlantic) Following three generations of a close-knit family in Kerala, India, this former doctor (although he still has a clinical practice and is a professor of the theory and practice of medicine at Stanford Medical School) starts his sweeping, gorgeous work with a young girl in 1900 and ends with a shocking discovery by her physician granddaughter in the 1970s.

The Fraud, Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton) Eliza Touchet – the housekeeper (and cousin) of the prolific, and not particularly skilled Scottish novelist William Ainsworth – gets caught up (along with all of England) in the real-life trial of a butcher who claims to be the supposedly drowned heir to a vast fortune.

The Iliad, Emily Wilson (W. W. Norton) The professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, who is a MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow, has translated another of Homer’s works – this time, The Illiad. Wilson’s The Odyssey (the first translation by a woman) was a tour de force; her new translation is equally engrossing.

The MANIAC, Benjamin Labatut (McClelland & Stewart) Spanning most of the past century, the Chilean writer’s stunning novel presents as a triptych about three (real) scientific prodigies whose gifts lead them down the path to madness ­– and our world to a newly perilous place.

The Postcard, Anne Berest (Europa Editions) In this fictionalized version of a true story, a postcard arrives at the Paris home of Anne’s mother, Lélia. Other than the address, the postcard is inscribed with only four names: Lélia’s maternal grandparents, and young aunt and uncle – all of whom were murdered at Auschwitz. Who sent the postcard, and why? This autobiographical mystery, translated from French by Tina Kover, is a page-turner, right through to its extraordinary ending.

Tom Lake, Ann Patchett (HarperCollins) This gentle tale of three daughters living with their mother on a cherry orchard farm during the pandemic lockdown could have been saccharine. But in the hands of a master storyteller, what you get instead are sentences that spark with warmth and kindness, and that show you how to value what you have. Meryl Streep reads the audiobook – a special delight.

Victory City, Salman Rushdie (Knopf Canada) Rushdie’s first book since the attack on his life styles itself as the translation, from Sanskrit, of an epic poem from the 14th century. The prophetess Pampa Kampana’s “immortal masterpiece” tells the 250-year-long haunting tale of the rise and fall of the city now called Hampi.

White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link (Random House Publishing Group) The MacArthur Genius Grant winner and Pulitzer finalist’s new collection is a series of wonderfully strange and funny retellings of classic fairy tales and lore.

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang (HarperCollins) This unsettling and propulsive satirical thriller takes on the commercial publishing industry as stymied author June steals the manuscript of her friend Athena (who died in a freak accident while the two were celebrating Athena’s successes). As the pilfered novel becomes more popular, the lies start to pile up.

Authors, booksellers share their topselling books and their favourites reads of the year

Canadian Fiction

A History of Burning, Janika Oza (McClelland & Stewart) This sprawling debut, shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Award for fiction, takes place in India, Uganda, England and Canada, and looks at the lives of one family including three sisters who are displaced from the place they call home. This is an epic tale of memory, family and belonging that confronts notions of identity: What does it means to be “Indian” when one is part of a diaspora?

Breaking and Entering, Don Gillmor (Biblioasis) In this hilarious and devastating look at upwardly mobile urban Toronto midlife, Bea, a recent empty-nester and unenthusiastic commercial gallerist, takes up a new hobby, unbeknownst to her professor husband: lock-picking. In the sweltering heat of her assisted-living facility, Bea’s mother is also fading with dementia. Under soaring temperatures, the future is under threat – for this couple, their sandwich-generation friends and the planet.

Daughter, Claudia Dey (Doubleday) Dey’s third novel offers an emotionally astute exploration of gender and family dynamics in the story of Mona, a playwright and occasional muse to her philandering, manipulative novelist father, Paul, who’s still grasping at the laurels from his one great novel, Daughter.

Do You Remember Being Born?, Sean Michaels (Random House Canada) Artists and authors everywhere fear being supplanted by artificial-intelligence-generated art and stories. With his latest book, Michaels uses wit, compassion and AI itself to make a counterpoint: What if AI could be wielded as a tool instead of feared as a foe?

And Then She Fell, Alicia Elliott (Doubleday Canada) This debut novel focuses on Alice, an Indigenous woman and new mother who lives in a wealthy Toronto neighbourhood. Alice is intent on rewriting her creation story, but as time passes in the home she shares with her husband, Steve, she begins to lose track of time, her identity and whether she’s writing the creation story, or if it’s writing her.

Are You Willing to Die for the Cause?, Chris Oliveros (Drawn & Quarterly ) An illustrated look at the early years of the FLQ that investigates the birth of the militant separatist group and the beginning of one of the country’s most challenging historical periods. This is the first in a planned two-volume series.

Birnam Wood, Eleanor Catton (McClelland & Stewart) The youngest-ever winner of the Booker prize returns with a sprawling, sparkling work of fiction where the titular group of radical environmentalists butt heads with an irascible billionaire – very timely stuff – and, with material that could otherwise browbeat, Catton has produced a literary wonder that spans time and genre.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (Del Rey) This charming story about a Cambridge professor’s attempt to compile the first complete encyclopedia of fairies brings a bit of literary sophistication to the fantasy genre.

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles, Jason Guriel (Biblioasis) The first thing to know about Guriel’s 2023 book is that it’s a novel written in rhyming couplets. The second is that it’s about whalers who are also werewolves. Guriel has completely nailed his own ambitious brief; it’s imaginative, innovative and unlike anything else published this year.

Instructions for the Drowning, Steven Heighton (Biblioasis) Released posthumously, this short-story collection carries serious emotional weight, both for the circumstances of its release and its content. All 11 short stories are gentle, profound examinations of the human condition, and are a fitting bookend to Heighton’s remarkable career.

Held, Anne Michaels (McClelland & Stewart) Spanning generations, and beginning in France during the First World War, Michaels looks at how trauma is carried and transferred through generations in a novel whose prose carries hints of her talents as a poet.

In the Upper Country, Kai Thomas (Penguin Canada) Shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Award for fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, this is a tale of two Black women – Lensinda and Cash – who settled in Canada during the 18th century in communities that were the last stop on the Underground Railroad.

Learned by Heart, Emma Donoghue (HarperCollins) The love affair between Anne Lister, sometimes known as “the first modern lesbian,” and Eliza Raine gets a fictional retelling from the always-brilliant pen of Emma Donoghue. A modern queer-lit classic.

Moon of the Turning Leaves, Waubgeshig Rice (Random House Canada) The sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow explores survival, Indigeneity and resilience in a postapocalyptic landscape. Rice flips the script on the end-of-the-world lit: Rather than turning on one another, the Indigenous community he focuses on here only grows stronger.

Old Babes in the Wood, Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart) The doyenne of Canlit has her first short-story collection in more than a decade and it’s vintage Atwood: whip-smart, witty and wry, with strong meditations on partnership, loss, feminism and humanity.

Really Good, Actually, Monica Heisey (HarperCollins) What if everything you did to make things feel right went wrong? A hilarious and human glimpse into the aftermath of a young divorce, set against one of the most eerily real-feeling backdrops of downtown Toronto to grace the page in years.

Roaming, Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly) Marking award-winning cousins Jillian and Mariko’s first collaboration in more than a decade, this graphic novel follows three young university students during a trip to New York. An exploration of how quickly the dynamics of friendship and romance can shift in your early 20s that acknowledges the necessary messiness of young adulthood without judgment.

Study for Obedience, Sarah Bernstein (Knopf) Unsettling, beguiling, frustrating: The Scotland-based, Montreal-born author’s work – winner of this year’s Giller and shortlisted for the Booker – has no dialogue, and we’re never quite sure where or when we are. And yet there’s something that holds our attention; perhaps it’s sentences like these: “I was the youngest child, the youngest of many – more than I care to remember.”

The Adult, Bronwyn Fischer (Random House Canada) Fischer’s coming-of-age queer romance centres on Natalie, a university freshman new to Toronto who begins a love affair with Nora, a much older woman. It’s a sharp, curious exploration of identity, power and the various unexpected pathways that lead us to discovering who we are.

The Adversary, Michael Crummey (Knopf Canada) In 18th-century Newfoundland, a failed marriage leads to two siblings escalating a decades-old rivalry as their fellow townsfolk become collateral in their struggle for power. Crummey’s evocative, at-times violent prose echoes the cadence of 18th-century literary masters, while cementing him as a modern-day master of the form.

The Clarion, Nina Dunic (Invisible Publishing) Peter, who plays the trumpet, has an audition for a regular gig at a local restaurant. In alternating chapters, Stasi deals with the aftermath of losing the corporate promotion that should have been hers. In this entrancing debut novel about what calls to us, brother and sister navigate the disappointments of adult life, burdened by shared childhood baggage.

The Islands, Dionne Irving (Catapult) Shortlisted for this year’s Giller Prize, Irving’s story collection follows the trajectories of Jamaican women as they navigate their respective colonial pasts. The collection explores the shared connections members of the diaspora have, even through time and space, through a mutual history of colonialism and a struggle to re-establish identity.

The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt (House of Anansi) Something of a book about books, deWitt’s latest novel focuses on the unassuming Bob Comet – the titular librarian – whose quiet life on the sidelines has hidden a past filled with adventure, turmoil and love. The award-winning deWitt’s prose is characteristically funny and compassionate, as Comet is revealed to be much more than he seems.

The Whispers, Ashley Audrain (Penguin Canada) A skillful examination of the guilt, pressure and impossible standards that accompany motherhood, Audrain’s second novel focuses on the rumours and neighbourhood whisper network that dogs a young mother after her son ends up in the hospital, months after a public argument.

Yara, Tamara Faith Berger (Coach House) Yara, a Brazilian teenager, is sent to Israel on a Birthright roots trip by her mother, who is desperate to separate her daughter from her much older girlfriend – a nurse Yara first encounters when she is having a nose job. The trip offers escape from her controlling partner, but it is not a good fit. Further escape will be necessary.

Non-Fiction/International

A Death in Malta, Paul Caruana Galizia (Riverhead) Daphne Caruana Galizia devoted her life to exposing corruption at the upper reaches of Maltese society and government. It got her killed. Her son, an accomplished journalist himself, has reconstructed his mother’s death and its aftermath to ask pointed questions of Malta, an EU member.

My Name Is Barbra, Barbra Streisand (Viking) In a candid memoir, the woman who doesn’t need her last name to be identified – she is the one and only Barbra – talks about her determination to succeed (she is the only artist with No. 1 albums in six different decades because she refuses to not push herself) and the hurdles she had to bypass to get there.

The Wager, David Grann (Doubleday) From its first to its last page, this nautical thriller never stops being jaw-dropping. It’s a book about the limits of human endurance but also about the power of Britain’s class system and naval codes, which held sway – almost – even on a deserted island thousands of miles away.

What an Owl Knows, Jennifer Ackerman (Penguin Press) The bestselling science writer turns her venerable research and storytelling skills toward one of the most fascinating animals in the bird kingdom – the owl. We learn that there are 260 species of owls spread across every continent except Antarctica and that their closest relatives are toucans and woodpeckers.

Number Go Up, Zeke Faux (Crown) One of the most accessible – and funniest – investigations yet into the failure of the crypto economy travels the world to chronicle absurd characters and societal changes that bitcoin’s earliest founders couldn’t have imagined. Come for the history lesson, stay for the scene where he convinces his wife to let him buy a $20,000 NFT named Dr. Scum NFT for the sake of journalism.

The Art Thief, Michael Finkel (Knopf Canada) Stéphane Breitwieser, a.k.a. the world’s “most prolific art thief,” a.k.a. “the Arsène Lupin of museums,” audaciously carried out hundreds of heists in the late 1990s, many in broad daylight, with the aim of prettifying his private attic lair in a nondescript French town.

Collision of Power, Martin Baron (Flatiron Books) After opening with an account of an uncomfortable 2017 dinner he attended at the White House with Jeff Bezos (who became the paper’s owner) and Donald Trump, Baron recounts his turbulent, pressurized years as executive editor of The Washington Post.

Ordinary Notes, Christina Sharpe (Knopf Canada) In a series of 248 moving, shattering and tender notes the York University professor traces the persistence of racism and brutality while also exploring Black life. The book won the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Prize for non-fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Going Infinite, Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton) Sam Bankman-Fried comes off as a cipher, both to others and, in some respects, to himself. Fitting, perhaps, for the public face of cryptocurrency, a commodity that so many embraced without having the faintest clue what it was.

Battle of Ink and Ice, Darrell Hartman (Viking) In 1909, two rival explorers each claimed to reach the North Pole; each adventurer was supported by a newspaper: The New York Times and The New York Herald. Thus began a vicious feud that touches on polar disasters and popular journalism.

Canadian Non-Fiction

Becoming a Matriarch, Helen Knott (Knopf Canada) After she lost her mother and grandmother in just over six months of each other, Knott started thinking about motherhood, matriarchy and co-dependency, and what happens to individuals and communities when the women who supported them are gone.

Blood on the Coal, Ken Cuthbertson (HarperCollins) On the 65th anniversary of the 1958 earthquake that trapped and killed 75 miners and injured many more in Springhill, N.S., in what was at the time the world’s deepest coal mine, Cuthbertson tells the story of the disaster from the point of view of three survivors and the doctor who treated them.

By the Ghost Light, R.H. Thomson (Knopf Canada) The actor turned author used a rich trove of correspondence from the multiple members of his family who served in the First World War as the starting point for this rumination on war’s impact on real people, and the false narratives we continually create to justify it.

Dominion, Stephen R. Bown (Doubleday Canada) Pierre Berton’s The National Dream and The Last Spike have for decades provided the dominant popular narrative of the building of the CPR. Offering some new perspective is Bown (the book took him three years to develop) who includes Indigenous and labourer perspectives rather than just the political and economic.

Doppelganger, Naomi Klein (Knopf Canada) Klein takes an experience that could only be exclusive to her – she is consistently confused with across-the-aisle pundit Naomi Wolf – and transforms it into an extremely of-the-moment, universal interrogation into truth in the age of AI and social-media personas.

Fire Weather, John Vaillant (Knopf Canada) This acclaimed and award-winning book offers a braided history of the rise of the oil sector and climate science. Set against the backdrop of the 2016 Fort McMurray, Alta., wildfires it is just the right amount of terrifying.

Halal Sex, Sheima Benembarek (Viking) Writer and journalist Benembarek interviewed Muslim women and gender non-conforming individuals to deliver an intimate portrait of the sex lives of Muslims – who, traditionally, view sex before marriage as haram, or forbidden – in North America.

Just Once, No More, Charles Foran (Knopf Canada) A powerful meditation on the relationship between a father and a son and coming to terms with loss.

Kings of Their Own Ocean, Karen Pinchin (Knopf Canada) Turns out a would-be biography of an Atlantic bluefin tuna can be riveting. Well, especially when you bring its unlikely two-time catcher into the mix and make it a story about the precarious state of conservation efforts.

Landbridge, Y-Dang Troeung (Knopf Canada) As an infant in the mid-seventies, Troeung and her Cambodian family who had fled Pol Pot’s murderous regime were photographed being greeted at the airport by Pierre Trudeau; the photo ended up in multiple news outlets. Troeung, who became a literature prof at UBC, died last year, but this book full of brief but profound reflections on her reclaimed heritage and on what it means to be a refugee will stand as an enduring legacy.

Message in a Bottle, Holly Hogan (Knopf Canada) In this finalist for the Governor-General’s Award for non-fiction, Hogan, a wildlife biologist, explores the world of marine life from seabirds to whales and outlines the biggest threat to them: plastic.

My Effin’ Life, Geddy Lee (HarperCollins) Rock music doesn’t sell much any more, but rock memoirs do. With help from ghostwriter Daniel Richler, bassist Geddy Lee of Rush offers a contextual, atypical story that covers his parents’ horrific experiences as teenagers during the Holocaust in Europe, his own upbringing in suburban Toronto, his deep love of baseball and, yes, the slow rise of one of Canada’s greatest rock bands.

Pageboy, Elliot Page (HarperCollins) A thoughtful, candid, deeply vulnerable book where actor Elliot Page chronicles his journey toward accepting himself as a queer person and a trans man. It’s at times heartbreaking for its honesty, and is an essential book for the moment, when trans people around the world are at perhaps greater risk than ever.

Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons, Charlotte Gray (Simon & Schuster) In a dual biography, the historian explains the pivotal roles that Sara Delano Roosevelt and Jennie Jerome Churchill, mothers of Franklin and Winston, played preparing their sons for their future roles as Allied leaders.

Superfan, Jen Sookfong Lee (McClelland & Stewart) Over 10 personal essays, Lee looks at how pop culture has shaped her life, her identity and her outlook as an Asian woman who didn’t always see herself represented in the music, movies and television shows she loved. Lee, who has published three novels, delves into non-fiction with bravery, honesty and a dedication to her perspective.

The Deepest Map, Laura Trethewey (Goose Lane) A gripping, timely account of the world’s push – by inventors, scientists, business people and government – to map the ocean’s floor. But to what end? Is this simply human curiosity to boldly go where we haven’t been before or is it a more sinister motivation to plunder the ocean’s riches?

The Duel, John Ibbitson (Signal) A comprehensive, engrossing account of the rivalry between two of Canada’s formative politicians: John Diefenbaker, the embattled Conservative Party leader who championed as many reforms as he struggled to gain the confidence of his party, and Lester B. Pearson, the Liberal leader whose charisma outweighed his skill as a politician.

The Lost Supper, Taras Grescoe (Greystone Books) With most of what we eat these days proving problematic environmentally and/or politically, might solutions be found in the cuisine of ancient times? This was the question guiding Grescoe as he travelled the world in pursuit of sustainable alternatives.

There is No Blue, Martha Baillie (Coach House Books) Through a series of vivid, brief vignettes, the poet and author (The Incident Report, The Search for Heinrich Schlogel) reflects on the death and lives of her parents and sister, Christina, who took her own life shortly before the publication of her and Baillie’s co-authored book, Sister Language.

Unearthing, Kyo Maclear (Knopf Canada) This year’s Governor-General’s Award for non-fiction winner, Maclear’s memoir follows her own life’s trajectory after she learned that her father, journalist Michael Maclear, was not her biological parent, just months after his death. A strong meditation on family, identity and self-definition.

Thrillers

All the Sinners Bleed, S. A. Cosby (Flatiron Books) Titus Crown, the first Black sheriff in Charon, Va., is one of the most engaging new characters in crime fiction and Cosby not only brilliantly develops his characters but also the pace and history of southern small-town rural life.

Murder at Haven’s Rock, Kelley Armstrong (Minotaur) Armstrong relocated her sleuth couple – Duncan and Dalton – to a new location in rural Yukon, which was a perfect way to freshen up a series.

Bright Young Women, Jessica Knoll (Simon & Schuster) Pamela Schumacher is the only one to see the face of the serial killer who broke into her Florida sorority house. This is a story of the women who lost their lives and instead of being mere footnotes to the story, they take centre stage in this retelling of a true-crime story.

Zero Days, Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster) The mistress of tight suspense puts a woman, Jacinta (Jack) Cross, who specializes in testing out security systems on the trail of her husband’s murderer. Gabe was killed after he found a “zero-day exploit,” a backdoor vulnerability, in a popular app.

The Eden Test, Adam Sternbergh (Flatiron Books) Daisy surprises her husband, Craig, with a week-long couples’ retreat in the hopes that their marriage will be revitalized – what follows is taut domestic suspense thriller.

The Girl by the Bridge, Arnaldur Indridason (Vintage) A superbly complex tale from the master of Icelandic Noir starts with a doll under a bridge; then comes the discovery of a girl’s corpse. This is a chilling mystery featuring the brilliant Detective Konrad with Reykjavik as the backdrop.

Crook Manifesto, Colson Whitehead (Doubleday Canada) The sequel to Harlem Shuffle returns the readers to the 1970s where protagonist Ray Carney is drawn back to solving a crime. But one of the best mysteries ever delights because of how adept Whitehead is at setting the time and place – America’s bicentennial.

None of This is True, Lisa Jewell (Atria) Two women are born in the same hospital on the same day and accidentally meet in a restaurant 45 years later. Their lives – very different from each other – are then changed forever.

A Death at the Party, Amy Stuart (Simon & Schuster) Think of A Death at the Party as Mrs. Dalloway with murder. Like Virginia Woolf before her, Stuart lets character dictate events and it works just as well in 2023 as it did a century ago.

Red Queen, Juan Gomez-Jurado (Minotaur) Recently translated from the Spanish, this spine-tingling thriller focuses on Antonia Scott, one of the smartest people in the world who is tasked with providing insights into the criminal mind. She’s paired up with Inspector Jon Gutierrez of the Bilbao Police and they’re in a race to save a kidnapped boy.

Cookbooks

In Mary’s Kitchen, Mary Berg (Appetite) Berg’s third book is a go-to for weekend brunches and celebratory get-togethers – she brings you into her happy place (the kitchen) with 100 recipes you’ll feel you can totally do, too.

Cook It Wild, Chris Nuttall-Smith (Penguin) Though this book will change your camping game with a brilliant prep-and-pack approach, the meals and baked goods in Nuttall-Smith’s book have just as much appeal cooking over an open fire in your own backyard.

Let’s Eat, DL Acken (Touchwood) Award-winning photographer DL Acken’s Let’s Eat is a choose-your-own-adventure style cookbook that aims to arm young cooks with the skills they need to follow recipes on their own, with little to no parental supervision.

A Generous Meal, Christine Flynn (Penguin) The question of what’s for dinner needs to be answered daily – Flynn’s hip but approachable collection of solutions nudges us out of our dinnertime ruts with recipes that don’t require a lot of time, money or know-how.

Farmhouse Vegetables, Michael Smith (Penguin) Chef Michael Smith’s menu at the Inn at Bay Fortune on Prince Edward Island is largely driven by the harvest of his surrounding edible farm, so it’s fitting that his latest book is a collection of recipes and culinary guidance around vegetable cookery.

Baking Wonderland, Jean Parker and Rachel Smith (Appetite) Sisters Parker and Smith bring curious kids on a baking adventure in their own kitchens, with easy-to-follow recipes for cookies, cakes, doughnuts, frostings, glazes and toppings to mix and match – it’s a sweet dream come true.

Salad Pizza Wine, Janice Tiefenbach, Stephanie Mercier Voyer, Ryan Gray and Marley Sniatowsky (Appetite) The team behind Montreal pizza joint Elena put together a boisterous cookbook that feels as if you brought the award-winning restaurant home, with a menu of salads, pizzas, pastas, even hoagies you can do yourself.

The Buddhist Chef’s Homestyle Cooking, Jean-Philippe Cyr (Appetite) A collection of comforting vegan recipes for sharing around the table, from jalapeño macaroni salad to ratatouille lasagna with almond ricotta, and flaky apple tarts and chocolate mug cakes for dessert.

BReD, Ed Tatton with Natasha Tatton (Penguin) The artisan bread maker and co-owner of the vegan café bakery BReD compiled a collection of plant-based breads: boules, baguettes, panettone, sticky buns, English muffins, brioche and babka, crêpes and galettes.

The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp, Jing Gao (Penguin) Chili crisp is having a moment, and chef Gao, founder of the celebrated Chinese food company Fly By Jing, has compiled a collection of recipes and stories to inspire us to reach for those jars for everything from smashed potatoes to a hot pot.

Picture Books & Young Adult

Naaahsa is an Artist!, Hali Heavy Shield (Second Story Press, 6-8) A beautiful tale of the relationship between a child and her Naaahsa (grandmother) as they bead, cook, share stories and paint. Naaahsa also explains how art gave her the strength to survive residential school.

Afterward, Everything was Different, Jairo Buitrago, illustrated by Rafael Yockteng (Greystone Kids, 4+) Readers are taken into the lives of a Pleistocene era family and difficulties they face trying to survive. Yockteng’s thrilling graphite-and-ink illustrations suggest how exceptionally observant a young girl might have been to capture their struggles on the walls of a cave 40,000 years ago.

The Origin of Day and Night, Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt, illustrated by Lenny Lishchenko (Inhabit Media, 6-8) This origin story captures the cadence of the storyteller’s voice as readers watch Tiri, the Arctic fox, and Ukaliq, the Arctic hare, try to find a compromise so that each can hunt and find food.

When You Can Swim, Jack Wong (Scholastic, 4-8) The winner of the 2023 Governor-General’s Literary Award for illustrated books showcases the delights of swimming – indoors and outdoors.

Who Owns the Clouds?, Mario Brassard, illustrated by Gérard DuBois (Tundra Books, 12+) This graphic novel shares the grief, trauma and pain Mila suffered from a childhood torn apart by war. She’s still overwhelmed by memories of the bombed village her family fled and a beloved uncle who simply disappeared. Are these real memories or only dreams?

The Skull, Jon Klassen (Candlewick, 6-9) A wonderfully spooky story that follows Otilla, a young girl, into a dark and scary forest where she find an enormous house inhabited by a friendly skull who’s in danger too. Klassen’s evocative graphite-and-ink illustrations in black and white and muted tones of sepia, rose and blue, perfectly complement the tinglingly compelling story based on a classic folktale.

The Sniger and the Floose, Ashley Fayth, illustrated by Katie Brosnan (Running the Goat, 4-8) A delightful nonsense poem full of “wild and wondrous” beasts, including the sniger, the floose, the squiffin, and the butterflabbit. Brosnan’s illustrations provide the perfect accompaniment to Fayth’s playful rhymes.

Do You Remember?, Sydney Smith (Groundwood Books, 4-7) A moving book about how memories are made. From its striking front cover on, Smith shares a dialogue between a mother and son as, tucked in bed in a new apartment, they trade memories back and forth of a life that’s changed.

Focus. Click. Wind., Amanda West Lewis (Groundwood Books, 13+) It’s 1968 and 17-year-old photojournalist-in-the-making Billie is caught up in a violent protest at Columbia University in New York. After, her mother moves them to Toronto and Billie discovers there are many ways to protest. How far will she go to be part of a revolution?

Into the Bright Open, Cherie Dimaline (Feiwel and Friends, 13+) A reimagining of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic that is set in Georgian Bay. Fifteen-year-old Mary Lennox confronts a world where she faces racism, colonization, ableism and homophobia.

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