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Here are our No. 1 picks for the top Canadian fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics and kids books of the year.
Our top pick: Endling by Maria Reva
Endling tells the story of three women whose lives are changed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yeva, a scientist, is obsessed with breeding rare snails, funding her work by dating Westerners who have come to Ukraine on romance tours. Sisters Nastia and Solomiya are also entwined in the marriage industry to figure out what happened to their mother. When the war begins, their plans are foiled and the hard truths of war are examined.
Maria Reva was born in Ukraine and grew up in New Westminster, B.C., where she currently lives. Her short story collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear won the 2022 Kobzar Literary Award and was on the 2020 Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize shortlist. Her debut novel Endling was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Reva is a judge for the 2026 CBC Short Story Prize.
Bookends with Mattea Roach27:48What happens to fiction in times of war?
Our top pick: The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse by Vinh Nguyen
In his memoir, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, Vinh Nguyen retraces his family’s journey from post-war Vietnam to Canada — and how this moment in history resonates with experiences in the diaspora today. The work is a genre-bending mix of real-life experiences, meticulous research and inventive history to explore the nature of family, immigration and identity.
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse was a finalist for the 2025 Governor General Literary Award for nonfiction and was shortlisted for the 2025 Toronto Book Award.
Nguyen is a Toronto-based writer, editor and educator whose work has been published in Brick, Literary Hub and The Malahat Review. He is a nonfiction editor at The New Quarterly, where he curates an ongoing series on refugee, migrant and diasporic writing. He was shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and won the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature. In 2022, he was a Lambda Literary nonfiction fellow.
The Sunday Magazine17:59Memories of Vietnam, 50 years after the war
Our top pick: Muybridge by Guy Delisle
In 1870s Sacramento, photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes on a challenge from railroad tycoon Leland Stanford — to prove whether a horse’s hooves ever leave the ground while galloping. In the process, Muybridge unknowingly pioneers time-lapse photography, laying the foundation for motion pictures as we know them.
Despite his groundbreaking discoveries, his life is marked by betrayal, intrigue and tragedy. Acclaimed cartoonist Guy Delisle captures the highs and lows of Muybridge’s career, bringing his story to life with sharp detail and emotional depth.
Guy Delisle is an critically-acclaimed cartoonist originally from Québec City. His books include Burma Chronicles, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Pyongyang and Shenzhen.
Our top pick: Wellwater by Karen Solie
Wellwater is a poetry collection that explores the intersection of cultural, economic and personal ideas of value, addressing aging, housing and environmental and economic crises. Wellwater won the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, the 2025 T.S. Eliot Prize and was a co-winner of the 2025 Forward Prize for Poetry.
Celebrating persistence in the natural world, Wellwater offers a message that hope is the only way to address these issues.
Karen Solie is the author of several poetry collections, including Short Haul Engine, Modern and Normal, Pigeon, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out and The Caiplie Caves. Solie teaches half-time in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews and spends the remainder of the year in Canada.
Our top pick: The One About the Blackbird by Melanie Florence and Matt James
In The One About the Blackbird, a little boy is taught to play the guitar by his grandfather. Years go by and the boy is now an adult and his grandfather has dementia. The boy visits him and plays him their favourite song — “the one about the blackbird” — on the guitar. A heartwarming picture book that shows the intergenerational connections created between a grandson and his grandfather through a love of music.
The One About the Blackbird is for ages 4 to 8.
Melanie Florence is a writer of Cree and Scottish heritage. Based in Toronto, she is the author of Missing Nimâmâ, which won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award in 2016 and the 2017 Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award. Some of her other works include Stolen Words, which won the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, He Who Dreams, The Missing and Benjamin’s Thunderstorm, which was illustrated by Hawlii Pichette.
Matt James is an illustrator and a writer, based in Toronto. He illustrated the picture books I Know Here and Rock by Laurel Croza, Yellow Moon, Apple Moon by Pamela Porter and The Stone Thrower by Jael Ealey Richardson. He also wrote and illustrated Tadpoles, Nice Try, Charlie! and The Funeral.
Our top pick: The Bloodstone Thief by Sabina Khan
A middle-grade fantasy inspired by Islamic mythology, The Bloodstone Thief is an adventure story with a young girl at its centre. Laila Habib is struggling to accept that she and her family will be staying in Houston, Texas, instead of going back to her old life in Mumbai. When she opens what she thinks is a birthday present, Laila accidentally releases an evil jinn from an amulet once trapped by her father. When the jinn captures Laila’s father and brings him to a world called Qaf, Laila must save him. With her world turned upside down, Laila must find a magical Bloodstone that gives her the power to send them both back to their world.
The Bloodstone Thief is for ages 9-12.
Sabina Khan is a B.C.-based writer born in Germany, who has lived in many places like Bangladesh and Texas. She writes about Muslim teenagers who move between cultures and her other books include What a Desi Girl Wants and Zara Hossain Is Here.
Our top pick: You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh
You Started It is a YA romance about high school senior Jamie Taher-Foster. After three years with her boyfriend, Ben Cameron, Jamie is set on a check list of things to do before graduating. What she doesn’t expect is for Ben to come back home after the summer ends and break up with her, only to be seen with another girl the following day.
Now, Jamie’s new plan is to get him back by fake dating Axel — a chilled out guy she has nothing in common with except for being Arab. As Jamie reckons with all these surprises to her senior year and the anxiety that comes with it, she begins to understand Axel and herself even better.
Jackie Khalilieh is a Palestinian Canadian YA writer who lives just outside of Toronto. Her first novel, Something More, was shortlisted for Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz and named one of the best Canadian books for kids & teens in 2023.
Need more inspiration? Check out our full lists of favourite fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics and kids books of the year.
