CBC Books is counting down the top 10 bestselling Canadian titles of 2025.
The books and their rankings are determined by sales from more than 250 independent Canadian bookstores, courtesy of Bookmanager.
10. Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
Dandelion is a book by Jamie Chai Yun Liew. (Kenya-Jade Pinto, Arsenal Pulp Press)
Dandelion is a novel about family secrets, migration, isolation, motherhood and mental illness. When Lily was a child, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family and was never heard from again. After becoming a new mother herself, Lily is obsessed with discovering what happened to Swee Hua.
She recalls growing up in a British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families and how Swee Hua longed to return to Brunei. Eventually, a clue leads Lily to southeast Asia to find out the truth about her mother.
Dandelion was featured on Canada Reads 2025.
Jamie Chai Yun Liew is a lawyer, law professor and podcaster based in Ottawa. Dandelion is her first novel, which won her the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop. She also wrote the nonfiction book Ghost Citizens. Liew was named one of CBC Books writers to watch in 2022.
9. Mallory and the Trouble with Twins by Arley Nopra
Mallory and the Trouble with Twins is a graphic novel by Arley Nopra. (Submitted by Arley Nopra, Graphix)
Mallory is confident in her babysitting skills — after all, she’s taken care of her seven younger siblings for years. But when she starts watching the Arnold twins, Marilyn and Carolyn, she quickly realizes they’re more trouble than she expected. The twins play tricks, act spoiled and make her job a nightmare. Still, as a responsible member of the Baby-Sitters Club, Mallory refuses to give up.
Mallory and the Trouble with Twins is for ages 8 to 12.
Arley Nopra is a Filipino comic creator who lives in Toronto. She has adapted and illustrated the Baby-Sitters Club books Claudia and the Bad Joke and Mallory and the Trouble with Twins.
8. Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Moon of the Crusted Snow is a book by Waubgeshig Rice. (ECW Press)
Moon of the Crusted Snow is a dystopian drama involving a protagonist named Evan Whitesky and a northern Anishinaabe community facing dwindling resources and rising panic after their electrical power grid shuts down during a cold winter. While the community tries to maintain order, forces from outside and within threaten to destroy the reserve.
Waubgeshig Rice is an Anishinaabe author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. He is also the author of the short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge and the novel Legacy, and a former host of CBC Radio’s Up North.
7. Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press/Emblem Editions)
Released in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale was Margaret Atwood’s breakthrough book on an international scale. The modern classic tells the story of a Handmaid known as Offred who is trapped in a society where her only purpose is to conceive and bear the child of a powerful man.
The Handmaid’s Tale won Atwood her second Governor General’s Literary Award and scored her first nomination for the Booker Prize. It has since undergone several adaptations, for film, stage, ballet, opera and most recently, TV and graphic novel. The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, was released in September 2019.
Atwood is one of Canada’s best known and most prolific writers. She has written more than 40 books in nearly all literary forms including short stories, nonfiction, children’s books and stage. Her novel The Testaments broke Canadian sales records and was named the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize.
6. Finding Flora by Elinor Florence
Finding Flora is a book by Elinor Florence. (Simon & Schuster)
In Finding Flora, Scottish newcomer to Canada, Flora, escapes her abusive husband to the Alberta prairie, determined to rebuild her life. But when a hostile government threatens their land and her violent husband is on the hunt for her, Flora forms a bond with her neighbours — a Welsh widow with three children, two American women raising chickens, and a Métis woman training wild horses. United, the women come together to face their challenges.
Elinor Florence is an author, journalist and member of the Métis Nation of B.C. Her debut novel was Bird’s Eye View, and her second novel, Wildwood, was one of Kobo’s Hundred Most Popular Canadian Books of All Time. Florence holds degrees in English and journalism. She grew up in Saskatchewan and currently lives in Invermere, B.C.
5. Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is a novel by Emma Knight. (Viking, Caitlin Cronenberg)
In The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, Pen arrives at the University of Edinburgh, set on uncovering what her divorced parents in Canada have hid from her. Not only does she start to uncover the truth about them during a weekend visit to a famous writer, an old friend of her father’s, Pen also experiences the many pangs of adulthood for the first time — including falling in love.
Emma Knight is an author, journalist and entrepreneur based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Vogue, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus and The New York Times. She co-hosted and created the podcast Fanfare and co-founded the organic beverage company Greenhouse. She is the author of cookbooks How to Eat with One Hand and The Greenhouse Cookbook.
4. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
One Golden Summer is a novel by Carley Fortune. (Penguin Random House Canada, Jenna Marie Wakani)
One Golden Summer is a follow-up to Carley Fortune’s debut book Every Summer After and tells the story of Alice, a photographer seeking a quiet, restorative summer at her childhood cottage with her grandmother. But her plans for peace are upended when Charlie — charming, flirtatious, and impossible to ignore — unexpectedly reappears. Soon, Alice finds herself feeling like she’s 17 again, questioning whether this summer might hold something more than she ever expected.
Fortune is a Toronto-based writer and journalist who has worked as an editor for Refinery29, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine and Toronto Life. Her previous books are Every Summer After, This Summer Will Be Different and Meet Me at the Lake, which was a contender for Canada Reads 2024, championed by Mirian Njoh.
3. Values by Mark Carney
Values is a book by Mark Carney. (Signal, Chris Young/Canadian Press)
Values is a book by Prime Minister Mark Carney. Published in 2021, Values looks at the “fault lines” that divide contemporary society — racial, geographical, cultural and economic — and argues that they all stem from the same thing: a crisis of values. In the book, Carney offers a vision of a “more humane society” and a map toward getting there.
Carney is the Prime Minister of Canada. He was sworn in on March 14. He previously worked in banking, including as governor for the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis.
2. The Black Wolf by Louise Penny
The Black Wolf is a book by Louise Penny. (Minotaur Books, Benjamin McAuley)
The Black Wolf is the 20th mystery in the Inspector Gamache series, which follows the investigations of the head of the homicide department of the Sûreté du Québec. In this latest adventure, Gamache and his team uncover and prevent a domestic terrorist attack in Montreal, arresting a man known as the Black Wolf. But the arrest only uncovers a deeper conspiracy, most notably a sinister plot to make Canada the 51st state of the United States.
Louise Penny is a celebrated writer whose series includes, among others, The Grey Wolf, Still Life, Bury Your Dead, A Trick of the Light and A World of Curiosities. It has sold more than four million copies worldwide. In 2022, the series was adapted into an Amazon Original eight-episode series called Three Pines. Penny won the 2020 Agatha Award for best contemporary novel for the 16th book in the series, All the Devils Are Here. In 2013, she was named to the Order of Canada.
1. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a book by Omar El Akkad. (Knopf, Kateshia Pendergrass)
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This marks Egyptian Canadian journalist and writer Omar El Akkad’s nonfiction debut. In the fall of 2023, shortly after the bombardment of Gaza, he posted on social media a statement: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”
The book expands on his powerful social media message and chronicles his thoughts on the fragile nature of truth, justice, privilege and morality.
El Akkad is a Canadian journalist and author who currently lives in Portland, Ore. His novel American War, which was defended on Canada Reads 2018 by actor Tahmoh Penikett and his novel What Strange Paradise won the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was defended on Canada Reads 2022 by Tareq Hadhad.
