The Hamilton Review of Books' Independently Published Bestsellers List: September 2022
Take a look at which independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores.
Fiction
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Drawn & Quarterly
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, Coach House Books
Estates Large and Small by Ray Robertson, Biblioasis
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu, Coach House Books
Finding Edward by Sheila Murray, Cormorant Books
Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli, Arsenal Pulp Press
The Taste of Hunger by Barbara Joan Scott, Freehand Press
The Gunsmith’s Daughter by Margaret Sweatman, Goose Lane Editions
Going to Beautiful by Anthony Bidulka, Stonehouse Originals
River, Diverted by Jamie Tennant, Palimpsest Press
Nonfiction
Laughing with the Trickster by Tomson Highway, House of Anansi Press
A Garden for the Rusty-patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators by Sheila Colla, Lorraine Johnson and Ann Sanderson, Douglas & McIntyre
How to Die: A Book About Being Alive by Ray Robertson, Biblioasis
Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising by Brandi Morin, House of Anansi Press
Gentrification Is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern, Between the Lines
21 Things You Might Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph, Indigenous Relations Press
Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada edited by Shiri Pasternak, Kevin Walby and Abby Stadnyk, Between the Lines
Homemade: Recipes and Stories from Winnipeg and Beyond by Eva Wasney, The Winnipeg Free Press
Modern Fables by Mikka Jacobsen, Freehand Press
Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Super Power by Charlie Angus, House of Anansi Press
Kids
With Our Orange Hearts by Phyllis Webstad (author), Emily Kewageshig (illustrator), Medicine Wheel Publishing
Still This Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie (author), Julie Flett (illustrator), Greystone Books
She Holds Up the Stars by Sandra Laronde, Annick Press
Siksikaitsitapi: Stories of the Blackfoot People by Payne Many Guns, Crystal Many Fingers, Sheena Potts, Latasha Calf Robe, Tim Fox, Marlene Yellow Horn, DerRic Starlight, Alayna Many Guns, UpRoute
Tokyo Digs a Garden by Jon-Erik Lappano, Groundwood Books
How I Built This List:
I am very grateful for all the bookstores who generously shared their sales data with me. The information used to create this list was drawn from the sales of Another Story Bookshop in Toronto, Biblioasis Bookshop in Windsor, The City and the City Books in Hamilton, Epic Books in Hamilton, McNally Robinson Booksellers (both the Grant Park and the Forks Locations in Winnipeg), McNally Robinson Saskatoon, Shelf Life Books in Calgary and Wordsworth Books in Waterloo. We’re covering a fair amount of Canada, but I hope to add more stores over time to the process and create a more wide-ranging list. If you are a bookstore who would like to contribute to the list please get in touch with us, we’d love to have more information.
Many of the authors on this list will be new to readers, but what I’ve done here is create a bestseller list drawn only from those books published by Canadian-owned independent presses. Most of the books in the top half of both the fiction and the nonfiction bestseller lists sold well in several of the stores on the list and many of the other titles are books that sold well in only one or two stores who shared information. Sometimes these were strongly regional titles. This month we’re starting to see the impact of the awards shortlists and the return of in-person events.
I acknowledge that this list is not at all perfect. It is only a small sampling of the data out there, but it is a fascinating look at what independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores across a reasonable amount of Canada.
My deep thanks to the Hamilton Review of Books for publishing this Independent Bestseller List. Please, if you’re looking for something wonderful to read this fall, visit your nearest independent bookstore and ask them what they suggest. The people who work in these stores know an amazing amount about books and will find you your next best possible read.
Noelle Allen