The Hamilton Review of Books' Independently Published Bestsellers List: February 2023
Take a look at which independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores.
March 16, 2023
Fiction
Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, Coach House
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Drawn & Quarterly
Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah, Véhicule Press
Finding Edward by Sheila Murray, Cormorant Press
Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry, edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli, Arsenal Pulp Press
Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese, House of Anansi
Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez, Arsenal Pulp Press
The Russian Daughter by Sarah Klassen, CommonWord
Goddess by Deborah Hemming, House of Anansi
The General of Tiananmen Square by Ian Hamilton, Spiderline
Nonfiction
On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer by Stephen Marche, Biblioasis
Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern, Between the Lines
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present by Robyn Maynard, Fernwood Publishing
Mushrooming: The Joy of the Quiet Hunt by Diane Borsato, illustrated by Kelsey Oseid, Douglas & McIntyre
The Wild Boy of Waubamik: A Memoir by Thom Ernst, Dundurn
A Conspiracy of Chickens: A Memoir by David Waltner-Toews, Wolsak and Wynn
Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder That Shocked Toronto by Carolyn Whitzman, On Point Press
The 2023 Prairie Garden: Climate Aware Gardening by The Prairie Garden Committee, TPG Publications
Only in Saskatchewan: Recipes and Stories from the Province’s Best-Loved Eateries by Naomi Hansen and Garrett Kendel, Touchwood Editions
Abolitionist Intimacies by El Jones, Fernwood Publishing
Kids
Still This Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie (author), Julie Flett (illustrator) Greystone Kids
The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor by Bushra Junaid, Running the Goat Press
Suck it in and Smile by Laurence Beaudoin-Masse and Shelley Tanaka, trans., Groundwood Books
Sometimes I Feel Like A River by Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Josée Bisaillon, Groundwood Books
Fox and Bear by Miriam Körner, Red Deer Press
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 still seeing the impact of the awards and of Canada Reads, but there are new titles creeping in.
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, 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