The Hamilton Review of Books' Independently Published Bestsellers List: December 2022
Take a look at which independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores.
Fiction
Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, Coach House
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Drawn & Quarterly
A Visit: A Ghost Story for Christmas by Shirley Jackson, Biblioasis
The Corner Shop: A Ghost Story for Christmas by Lady Cynthia Asquith, Biblioasis
The Dead and the Countess: A Ghost Story for Christmas by Gertrude Atherton, Biblioasis
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu, Coach House Books
Some Hellish by Nicholas Herring, Goose Lane
Best Canadian Short Stories 2023 edited by. Mark Anthony Jarman, Biblioasis
As Little as Nothing by Pamela Mulloy, ECW Press
The Taste of Hunger by Barbara Joan Scott, Freehand Books
Nonfiction
Mushrooming: The Joy of the Quiet Hunt – An Illustrated Guide to the Fascinating, the Delicious, the Deadly and the Strange by Diane Borsato (author) and Kelsey Oseid (illustrator), Douglas & McIntyre
Laughing with the Trickster by Tomson Highway, House of Anansi
A Conspiracy of Chickens: A Memoir by David Waltner-Toews, Wolsak and Wynn
The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold Johnson, Biblioasis
Abolitionist Intimacies by El Jones, Fernwood Publishing
On Browsing by Jason Guriel, Biblioasis
Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie, Biblioasis
Only in Saskatchewan: Recipes and Stories from the Province’s Best-Loved Eateries by Naomi Hansen and Garrett Kendal, TouchWood Editions
The 2023 Prairie Garden: Climate Aware Gardening by The Prairie Garden Committee, TPG Publications
The Longest Suicide: The Authorized Biography of Art Bergmann by Jason Schneider, Anvil Press
Kids
Still This Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie (author) and Julie Flett (illustrator), Greystone Kids
Revenge of the Raccoons by Vivek Shraya (author) and Juliana Neufeld (illustrator), Owlkids
The Wolf Suit by Sid Sharp, Annick Press
Fatty Legs: 10th Anniversary Edition by Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton and Liz Amini-Holmes (illustrator), Annick Press
The Mushroom Fan Club by Elise Gravel, Drawn & Quarterly
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 by Biblioasis Bookshop in Windsor by The City and the City Books in Hamilton by Epic Books in Hamilton by McNally Robinson Booksellers (both the Grant Park and the Forks Locations in Winnipeg) by McNally Robinson Saskatoon by Shelf Life Books in Calgary and Wordsworth Books in Waterloo. We’re covering a fair amount of Canada by 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 by we’d love to have more information.
Many of the authors on this list will be new to readers by 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 still seeing the impact of the awards and of gift buying on the list with a lot of Christmas ghost stories!
I acknowledge that this list is not at all perfect. It is only a small sampling of the data out there by 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 by if you’re looking for something wonderful to read by 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