CBC Canada Reads: 2025 Longlist

Canada's great book debate is back for another year! Find all 15 of the longlisted titles at GVPL to read along.

Learn more about the debate on CBC: Canada Reads on CBC

Updated February 1, 2025
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Whispers
Audrain, Ashley.
Paper Book
A propulsive page-turner about four suburban families whose lives are changed when the unthinkable happens--and what is lost when good people make unconscionable choices With The Push, Ashley Audrain gave us a transgressive, bestselling novel about motherhood. Now she...
Watch out for her : a novel
Bailey, Samantha M.
Paper Book
Shortlisted for CANADA READS · Instant #1 National Bestseller · A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year A tense psychological thriller about a mother who must keep watch at all times if she wants to keep her family safe--from USA TODAY and #1 national bestselling author...

Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2025 and championed by Maggie Mac Neil

What I Know about You
Chacour, Eric
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025 CBC BOOKS CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2024  SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2024 DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS FINALIST FOR THE ATWOOD GIBSON...
Pull of the stars
Donoghue, Emma, 1969-
Paper Book
In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in "Donoghue's best novel since Room" (Kirkus Reviews) In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an...
Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Hooper, Emma
Paper Book
A gorgeous literary debut about unlikely heroes, lifelong promises, and last great adventures. Otto, The letter began, in blue ink, I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. Don't worry, I've left you the truck. I can walk. I...

Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2025 and championed by Michelle Morgan

Other valley
Howard, Scott Alexander
Paper Book
*Soon to be a TV series* Jimmy Fallon's Book Club Top Four Pick and a PBS Book Club Pick For fans of Kazuo Ishiguro and Emily St. John Mandel, this "mind-bending take on time travel" (The New York Times) is about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and...
Dandelion
Liew, Jamie Chai Yun
Paper Book
When Lily was eleven years old, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family, never to be seen or heard from again. Now, as a new mother herself, Lily becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Swee Hua. She recalls the spring of 1987, growing up in a small British Columbia mining town...

Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2025 and championed by Saïd M'Dahoma

However far away
Pal, Rajinderpal S.
Paper Book
Longlist, Canada Reads 2025 A sweeping family saga set against the backdrop of a Sikh wedding. On the morning of his nephew's wedding, Devinder Gill is certain the delicate balance of his life will not be upset. Dev is married to Kuldip, and together they are raising two young...
Girl runner
Snyder, Carrie
Paper Book
Resonant of Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things and Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures, Girl Runner is an unforgettable, beautifully written novel that celebrates a woman born to reach beyond the limitations of her time. As a young runner, Aganetha Smart defied everyone's...
All our ordinary stories : a multigenerational family odyssey
Wong, Teresa
Paper Book
Beginning with her mother's stroke in 2014, Teresa Wong takes us on a moving journey through time and place to locate the beginnings of the disconnection she feels from her parents. Through a series of stories - some epic, like her mother and father's daring escapes from communes during China's...

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