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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The Whispers: The Propulsive New Novel from the Author of the PUSH
Audrain, Ashley
Paper Book
"Expertly, subtly and powerfully rendered....[The Whispers] delivers a sucker-punch ending you'll have to read twice to believe."--The New York Times Book Review "[An] electrifying...razor-sharp page-turner." --Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling...
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...
The pull of the stars : a novel
Donoghue, Emma
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...
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

The Other Valley: A Novel
Howard, Scott Alexander
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025 For fans of Emily St. John Mandel, David Mitchell, and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exquisite literary speculative novel set in an unnamed valley, where bereaved residents can petition to cross a forbidden border to see their lost loved ones again...
Jennie's boy : a Newfoundland childhood
Johnston, Wayne
Paper Book
** Winner of the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour ** The sad, tender, and extremely funny memoir of a boyhood few thought he would survive, including the unforgettable mother and hilarious grandmother who raised him A book to be relished by lovers of such...

Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2025 and championed by Linwood Barclay

Clyde Fans : a picture novel in five parts
Seth
Paper Book
Appeared on 20 best of the year lists, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and more! "Open Clyde Fans and let Seth take you into his time machine. There's no room for nostalgia in Seth's vision. The past is as sharp and painful...
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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