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Boundary is a book about murder – two, actually – but somehow reads with a warmth and familiarity that makes me question my own subconscious predilections. Michaud’s latest spin on thriller easily overtakes the genre’s more traditional approaches (many ruling bestseller lists this year); a singular story, entirely unique, but laced with classical crime’s nostalgic flair. – Terra Arnone

18

Lost in September by Kathleen Winter (Knopf Canada)

A finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the much-anticipated follow-up to Winter’s 2010 bestseller Annabel, Lost in September finds a reincarnated General Wolfe (as in the foil to Montcalme) stricken with PTSD and living on the streets of Montreal. It is an inventive personification of past and present, and the way historical violence bleeds into the future. – Paul Taunton

17

Hostage by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)



A graphic non-fiction account of Christophe André’s kidnapping and imprisonment by Chechen rebels, Delisle creates tension out of a relatively static situation: André chained to a radiator in a locked room for over a hundred days, waiting for an opportunity to escape. – Michael Melgaard

16

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (Riverhead)



Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, which made this year’s Man Booker longlist, brings Sophocles’s Antigone to the now, in five acts, taking the reader from England to Massachusetts to Istanbul to Syria to Pakistan in a story that not only crosses waters but families, in their efforts to reach for something more, weighed down again and again by the anchor of home. – Sadaf Ahsan

15

Minds of Winter by Ed O’Loughlin (House of Anansi)



Minds of Winteris a mystery, sort of, but it’s more a profound ode to land, legend, and love. I had good mind for but no money on O’Loughlin bringing home this year’s Giller, and his loss doesn’t take a thing away from the shortlisted book itself: beautifully drawn and expertly told, Minds of Winter is gripping from the start. – Terra Arnone

14

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (Scribner)



After the experimentation of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel-in-stories A Visit From The Goon Squad, a straightforward historical novel might seem a step back for Egan. Perish the thought. Manhattan Beach is at once an utterly convincing historical piece while maintaining a contemporary approach and sensibility. Blending several storylines, Manhattan Beach will break your heart. – Robert J. Wiersema

13

Boundless by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

Canadian illustrator Jillian Tamaki’s latest feels weighed down by nostalgia, by expectation, and by longing; three common bedfellows that here are given new life not only in her mostly black-and-white renderings, but through her anxious eye. It’s almost as if she knows something the reader doesn’t, instilling an infectious hope from page to page. – Sadaf Ahsan

12

The Way of the Strangers: Encounters With the Islamic State by Graeme Wood (Random House)

The winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction, The Way of the Strangers is the extension of Wood’s Atlantic feature “What ISIS Really Wants,” and an expansive but incisive look at why so many around the world have been radicalized. – Paul Taunton

11

Transit by Rachel Cusk (HarperCollins)



It’s strange: a novel which largely eschews narrative (renovations are about the only thing that happens in Transit) is one of the most powerful assemblages of storytelling of the year, disparate recollections weaving and circling through fundamentally human questions and concerns. A surprising, disarming novel. – Robert J. Wiersema

10

Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine by James Maskalyk (Doubleday Canada)

In a memoir that won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, Dr. James Maskalyk relates the universality of emergency room medicine around the world (and between his two hospitals in Toronto and Addis Ababa in particular), and the shared experience of those who find themselves there. – Paul Taunton

9

We’ll All Be Burnt in Our Beds One Night by Joel Thomas Hynes (HarperPerennial)

The winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, Hynes’s newest novel is an epic road trip across Canada and into the past, as Johnny Keough delivers his girlfriend’s ashes to a Vancouver beach while reflecting on the series of mistakes – and maybe one last chance – that have brought him there. – Paul Taunton

8

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose (HarperCollins)

It feels like an injustice to describe Chew-Bose’s book as a memoir; that genre alone doesn’t capture the wide-ranging abstraction of her own memory and thought process. In fact, it feels more like a collection of music than of personal essays, each vignette demanding an emotional pause by the end, to think about what you’ve just read and then think about it again. – Sadaf Ahsan, on her No. 1 book of 2017

7

Annie Muktuk and Other Stories by Norma Dunning (University of Alberta)

Inuk writer Norma Dunning’s debut collection passed under the radar of the big awards despite being the year’s best short fiction collection. The stories infuse Inuit myth with reality, explore the effects of colonialism, and delve into settler-writer portrayals of Inuit, all told with heart and humour that is infectious. – Michael Melgaard, on his No. 1 book of 2017

6

I Am a Truck by Michelle Winters (Invisible)

My favourite of 2017; landing top spot entirely despite itself. In fewer pages than the average graduate thesis, Winters uses some inexplicable, paradoxical, somehow decadent simplicity to paint no less than six profound character studies against the backdrop of – wait for it – rural Acadia. Va savoir. – Terra Arnone, on her No. 1 book of 2017

5

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga (House of Anansi)

Tanya Talaga investigates the deaths of seven Indigenous teens in Thunder Bay – Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Robyn Harper, Paul Panacheese, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morrisseau and Jordan Wabasse – searching for answers and offering a deserved censure to the authorities who haven’t investigated, or considered the contributing factors, nearly enough. – Paul Taunton

4

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Random House)

Photo by Mike Faille/National Post

On January 3, 2013 (pay attention to that date), the New York Times wrote of the about-to-be-published Tenth of December, “George Saunders Has Written The Best Book You’ll Read This Year.” They were right then, and they would have been right if they had said something similar this past January. Lincoln in the Bardo was one of the earliest books I read in 2017, and it set the bar for fiction so high few other books even came close. A master class in literary pyrotechnics and fundamental human empathy, Lincoln in the Bardo continues to impress. – Robert J. Wiersema, on his No. 1 book of 2017

3

Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill (Doubleday Canada)

The winner of the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Bellevue Square is a literary thriller – about a Toronto bookstore owner who becomes obsessed with a doppelgänger roaming Kensington Market. Redhill’s victory was roundly cheered by fans of his books back to his debut Martin Sloane (2001), itself a finalist for the Giller Prize. – Paul Taunton

2

Brother by David Chariandy (McClelland & Stewart)

Winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, Chariandy’s sophomore novel further establishes him as one of Canada’s best writers. Set in the nascent hip-hop scene of Scarborough in the 1980s, Brother is a deeply emotional story of family, community, and coming to terms with grief. – Michael Melgaard

1

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson (Knopf Canada)

The book perhaps most widely praised by Canadian prize juries, booksellers and media this year, Son of a Trickster was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a favourite among the National Post‘s contributors.

Terra Arnone says, “Eden Robinson is one of Canada’s best writers, wry and somehow subtle in always-weighty subject matter, and Son of a Trickster is one of her finest books.”

Robert Wiersema says, “My favourite Canadian novel of the year, a brilliant marriage of teenage-burnout realism and Indigenous mythology, breathtakingly unique in Canadian letters. A propulsive read and, thankfully, just the first volume in a projected trilogy.”

For those who think the second instalment of a trilogy is almost always the best, there’s a lot to look forward to.