Books set in Winnipeg: Staff Picks

Updated April 11, 2023
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Vanishing monuments : a novel
Stintzi, John Elizabeth
Paper Book
Alani Baum, a non-binary photographer and teacher, hasn't seen their mother since they ran away with their girlfriend when they were seventeen -- almost thirty years ago. But when Alani gets a call from a doctor at the assisted living facility where their mother has been for the last five years,...
The case of Lena S.
Bergen, David
Paper Book
The Case of Lena S. follows the life, loves, and coming-of-age of sixteen-year-old Mason Crowe during a year in which he will learn what it truly means to be in the world. At the centre of the novel is Lena, a troubled girl who has “chosen” Mason and will teach him something of...
Once more with feeling
Cook, Méira
Paper Book
From award-winning author Méira Cook comes a novel exploring the intricacies and interconnected lives of one community in a small and colourful prairie city. After twenty years Max Binder is still in love with his fiery wife, Maggie, and is determined to get her the perfect fortieth...
Treed
Gordon, Ariel
Paper Book
With intimacy and humour award-winning poet Ariel Gordon walks us through the streets of Winnipeg and into the urban forest that is, to her, the city's heart. Along the way she shares with us the lives of these urban trees, from the grackles and cankerworms of the spring, to the flush of...
Some great thing
Hill, Lawrence
Paper Book
Mahatma Grafton is a disillusioned university graduate burdened with a famous name, and suffering from the curse of his generation -- a total lack of interest in the state of the world. The son of a retired railway porter from Winnipeg, he returns home for a job as a reporter with The...
Fanonymous
Joudrey, M. C.
Paper Book
Earth and sky are devoid of colour. There are no beginnings or endings. Then the snow melts. Maybe it's the dead cars. It could be the escaped bison roaming the downtown core. Mosquitoes? Sure. Dragonflies? Absolutely. And it's also...
The Shadow over Portage and Main
Cadieux, Keith
Paper Book
Winnipeg is a place of extremes. Winters are fierce and relentless. Summers are unbearbly hot. It has been both the murder and auto theft capital of Canada and the Slurpee capital of the world. It is a place that exerts an influence, that marks and changes its inhabitants. This anthology features...
Baldur's Song: A Saga
Arnason, David
Paper Book
Winnipeg's boom-town days at the turn of the nineteenth century come to life through the eyes of Baldur, a boy from Gimli, the Icelandic immigrant settlement on the southernmost shore of Lake Winnipeg. Both city and boy grow from innocence to savvy creatures of business as they mature, fall in love,...
Bandit
Tefs, Wayne
Paper Book
In 1966, Ken Leishman stepped onto the Winnipeg Airport tarmac and into the pages of Canadian history as the mastermind behind the country's largest gold theft. Known as the "flying bandit" or the "gentleman bandit," Leishman had already gained Dillinger-esque notoriety as a bank robber, when he...
Larry's party
Shields, Carol
Paper Book
Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony and tenderness. Carol Shields gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life, in episodes between 1977 and 1997 that flash back and forward seamlessly. As Larry journeys toward the millennium, adapting...
The opening sky
Thomas, Joan
Paper Book
The breakout novel from award-winning author Joan Thomas, it perfectly balances the dark underside of modern life, love, and family with wit and sharp observation: for fans of Good to A Fault, the works of Carol Shields, of Meg Wolitzer, and Jonathan Franzen.      A stunning...
Under the Ribs of Death
Marlyn, John
Paper Book
Set in the immigrant community of Winnipeg’s North End, Under the Ribs of Death follows the progress of young Sandor Hunyadi as he struggles to cast off his Hungarian background and become a “real Canadian.” Embittered by poverty and social humiliation, Sandor rejects...

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