The Hamilton Review of Books' Independently Published Bestsellers List: June 2025
Take a look at which independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores.
July 21, 2025
Fiction
She’s A Lamb! by Meredith Hambrock, ECW Press
The Cost of a Hostage: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw, Touchwood Editions
The Fun Times Brigade by Lindsay Zier-Vogel, Book*hug Press
Born by Heather Birrell, Coach House Books
A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar, Invisible Publishing
Home Fires Burn by Anthony Bidulka, Stonehouse Publishing
The World So Wide by Zilla Jones, Cormorant Press
Lies I Told My Sister by Louise Ells, Latitude 46
Make the World New: The Poetry of Lillian Allen by Lillian Allen (Author), Ronald Cummings (Editor), Wilfrid Laurier University Press
A Daughter’s Place by Martha Bátiz, House of Anansi Press
Nonfiction
Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community by Maggie Helwig, Coach House Books
A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-nee Chacaby (Author), Mary Louisa Plummer, University of Manitoba Press
In Too Deep: When Canadian Punks Took Over the World by Matt Bobkin (Author), Adam Feibel (Author), House of Anansi
Messy Cities: Why We Can’t Plan Everything by Dylan Reid (Editor), Zahra Ebrahim (Editor), Leslie Woo (Editor), John Lorinc (Editor), Coach House Books
Soft as Bones: A Memoir by Chyana Marie Sage, House of Anansi Press
Grandfather of the Treaties: Finding Our Future Through the Wampum Covenant by Daniel Coleman, Wolsak & Wynn
Elements of Indigenous Style, 2nd Edition by Gregory Younging (Author), Warren Cariou (Lead Editor), Brush Education
In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times by James Cairns, Wolsak and Wynn
Food for the Journey: A Life in Travel by Elizabeth J. Haynes, Thistledown Press
Founding Folks: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Folk Festival by Kevin Nikkel, University of Manitoba Press
Kids
Dreaming Alongside by Monique Gray Smith (Author), Nicole Neidhardt (Illustrator), Orca Book Publishers
My Friend May by Julie Flett, Greystone Kids
Lost at Windy River: A True Story of Survival by Trina Rathgeber (Author), Jillian Dolan (Colorist), Alina Pete (Illustrator), Orca Book Publishers
The Antiracist Kitchen: 21 Stories (and Recipes) by Nadia L. Hohn (Editor), Roza Nozari (Illustrator), Orca Book Publisers
Down by Jim Long’s Stage: Rhymes for Children and Young Fish by Al Pittman, Breakwater 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, 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 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’ve seen some big names in Canadian children’s writing release new books and you can see the impact on the children’s bestsellers.
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