The Hamilton Review of Books' Independently Published Bestsellers List: April 2022
Take a look at which independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores.
Fiction
Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez, Arsenal Pulp Press
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu, Coach House Books
Winter, or a Town Near Palgrave by Andre Alexis, Coach House Books (special edition chapbook for Indie Bookstore Day)
Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel, Arsenal Pulp Press
My Grief the Sun by Sanna Wani, House of Anansi
All the Shinning People by Kathy Friedman, Astoria (House of Anansi)
Bombing the Moon by Nancy Chislett, Now or Never Publishing
Shimmers of Light: New and Selected Poems by Robert Curry, Thistledown Press
Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah, Dundurn Press
You Still Look the Same by Farzana Doctor, Freehand Books
Nonfiction
305 Lost Buildings of Canada by Raymond Biesinger and Alex Bozikovic, Goose Lane Editions
Di-Bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways by Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill, Dundurn Press
It Was Dark There All the Time: Sophia Burthen and the Legacy of Slavery in Canada by Andrew Hunter, Goose Lane Editions
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 Press
Hearts on Fire: Six years that changed Canadian music 2000-2005 by Michael Barclay, ECW Press
Good Mom on Paper: Writer’s on Creativity and Motherhood edited by Stacey May Fowles and Jen Sookfong Lee, Book*hug Press
Prairie Gardner’s Go To For Trees and Shrubs by Janet Melrose, Shirley Normandeau, TouchWood Editions
Only in Saskatchewan: Recipes and Stories from the Province’s Best-Loved Eateries by Naomi Hansen, Garrett Kendal, TouchWood Editions
Running Shaped Hole by Robert Earl Stewart, Dundurn Press
Kids
Little Book: Story Reader for a Free Ukraine by Mykola Matwijczuk and Lorene Shyba, UpRoute
Siksikaitsitapi: Stories of the Blackfoot People by Payne Many Guns, Crystal Many Fingers, Sheena Pots, Latasha Calf Robe, Tim Fox, Marlene Yellow Horn, DeRic Starlight and Alayna Many Guns, UpRoute
Be A Good Ancestor by Leona Prince, Gabrielle Prince, Carla Joseph, Orca Publishing
peepeekisis ātayōhkēwina: Sacred Stories of Peepeekisis Cree Nation by Eleanor Brass, Patricia Deiter, Aleigha Agecoutay, Solomon Ratt, Your Nickle’s Worth Publishing
I Sang You Down from the Stars by Tasha Spillett-Sumner, Michaela Goade, OwlKids
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 April 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 I was delighted to see a number of poetry titles make the top ten in the fiction list and to see the impact of Independent Bookstore Day on the list with a limited edition title that came out for that day.
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. I’m looking forward to seeing the data for our May list, as the Spring books continue to fill our bookstore shelves. Please, if you’re looking for something wonderful to read this spring, 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