The Hamilton Review of Books' Independently Published Bestsellers List: September 2024
Take a look at which independently published books Canadians are purchasing from independent bookstores.
October 22, 2024
Fiction
Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction, 2024-1984 by Gary Barwin, Assembly Press
Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction by Sonia Sulaiman (Editor), Fernwood Books
Smoke: Stories by Nicola Winstanley, Wolsak and Wynn
Bad Land by Corinna Chong, Arsenal Pulp Press
The Canadian Shields: Stories and Essays by Carol Shields (Author), Margaret Atwood (Foreword), Nora Foster Stovel (Editor), University of Manitoba Press
White by Aviva Rubin, RE:BOOKS
Mondegreen Riffs by Angeline Schellenberg, At Bay Press
I Never Said that I Was Brave by Tasneem Jamal, House of Anansi Press
She Falls Again by Rosanna Deerchild, Coach House Books
El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities by Samia Marshy (Editor), Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch (Editor), Metonymy Press
Nonfiction
The Social Safety Net: Canada in Decline by Nora Loreto, Dundurn Press
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen, Biblioasis
Special Topics in Being a Parent: A Queer and Tender Guide to Things I've Learned About Parenting, Mostly the Hard Way by S. Bear Bergman (Author), Saul Freedman-Lawson (Illustrator), Arsenal Pulp Press
40 Days and 40 Hikes: Loving the Bruce Trail One Loop at a Time by Nicola Ross, ECW
Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) by Craig Fortier (Editor), Edward Hon-Sing Wong (Editor), MJ Rwigema (Editor), Between the Lines
The Audacity of Relevance: Critical Conversations on the Future of Arts and Culture by Alex Sarian, ECW Press
Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves by Andrea Currie, Arsenal Pulp Press
Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools by Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine, Heritage House Publishing
Bad Artist: Creating in a Productivity-Obsessed World by Nellwyn Lampert (Editor), Pamela Oakley (Editor), Christian Smith (Editor), Gillian Turnbull (Editor), Touchwood Editions
The Monster and the Mirror: Mental Illness, Magic, and the Stories We Tell by K.J. Aiello, ECW Press
Kids
Today is Orange Shirt Day by Phyllis Webstad (Author), Natassia Davies (Illustrator), Medicine Wheel Publishing
The Mango Monster by Derek Mascarenhas (Author), Meneka Repka (Illustrator), Owlkids
Age 16 by Rosena Fung, Annick Press
Waltraut by Gabriele Goldstone, Wandering Fox (Heritage House Publishing)
We Belong to the Drum by Sandra Lamouche (Author), Azby Whitecalf (Illustrator), Orca Book Publishers
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 September we’re seeing the impact of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation along with the release of many new fall titles, and the beginning of awards season.
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