The 2022 Canada Reads longlist includes recent and not-so-recent award-winning books, including Michelle Good’s Five Little Indians and Omar El Akkad’s What Strange Paradise. The longlisted books all “inspire readers to reflect on community and who we are in the world we live in,” the CBC said in announcing the list.
The five panellists and the books they choose to champion in the annual battle of the books will be announced on Jan. 26. The Canada Reads debates will be hosted by actor and comedian Ali Hassan and will take place from March 28–31.
The longlisted books are:
- The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe (Nimbus Publishing)
- Driven by Marcello Di Cintio (Biblioasis)
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (HarperCollins Canada)
- What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad (McClelland & Stewart)
- Book of Wings by Tawhida Tanya Evanson (Esplanade Books/Véhicule Press)
- Satellite Love by Genki Ferguson (McClelland & Stewart)
- Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen (Harper Perennial)
- Five Little Indians by Michelle Good (HarperCollins Canada)
- Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez (Arsenal Pulp Press)
- All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac (Touchwood Editions)
- Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough (Esplanade Books/Véhicule Press)
- Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey/Penguin Random House Canada)
- Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Müller (Allen Lane/PRHC)
- From My Mother’s Back by Njoki Wane (Wolsak & Wynn)
- We Two Alone by Jack Wang (House of Anansi Press)