In the lead up to the holiday season, Kate Beaton’s 2022 Canada Reads–winning graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (Drawn & Quarterly Publications) sits as the top selling Canadian-authored and Canadian-published title of 2023 at Canada’s independent bookstores.

The top-selling titles from Canadian-owned publishers have remained quite consistent throughout 2023 (the previous list was reported in Q&Q in April). A significant number of titles are also carryovers from the 2022 bestseller list. 

The current lists are drawn from sales data gathered by Bookmanager from 249 independent Canadian booksellers between Jan. 1 and Nov. 25, 2023.

Along with Beaton, 2022 Giller Prize–winning Suzette Mayr, Bob Joseph, Cherie Dimaline, Waubgeshig Rice, Dimitri Nasrallah, Richard Wagamese, Iona Whishaw, and Leona and Gabrielle Prince continue to dominate the top positions in the list of bestsellers published by Canadian-owned publishers.

The two 2023 titles to crack the top 10 are Patrick deWitt’s The Librarianist (House of Anansi Press) at number seven and Iona Whishaw’s new Lane Winslow mystery, To Track a Traitor (TouchWood Editions), at number 10. Whishaw is the only author with two books in the top 25, with Killer in King’s Cove, the first book in the mystery series, coming in at number 24. Last year, Whishaw’s 2022 Lane Winslow mystery, Framed in Fire, was in the top 25.

Also new to the top 25 are Every Child Matters by Phyllis Webstad (Medicine Wheel Publishing), whose With Our Orange Hearts appeared on the 2022 bestseller list; Angela Sterritt’s memoir Unbroken (Greystone Books); and the new Massey Lecture, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart by Astra Taylor (House of Anansi Press).

The list of bestselling Canadian-authored titles of 2023 – which also includes books published by multinational publishers and others – is similarly consistent, with Michael Greenwood, Michelle Good, Gabor Maté, Miriam Toews, Jessica Johns, and Margaret Atwood continuing to place at the top of the list over the course of 2023.

Several authors have two of their books in the top 25 for indies: Michelle Good’s Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada  (HarperCollins) joins her long-running bestselling novel Five Little Indians; the 2023 Harper Perennial paperback edition of Emily St John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility joins Station Eleven; and Moon of the Turning Leaves (Random House Canada), Waubgeshig Rice’s follow up to Moon of the Crusted Snow, gives him two positions on the list. Moon of the Turning Leaves, published in October, is the fastest-climbing fall release: it sits at number 16.

Other newcomers to the list of Canadian titles include Carley Fortune’s Meet Me at the Lake (Penguin Canada); Elliot Page’s memoir Pageboy (HarperCollins); and John Vaillant’s multi-award-winning nonfiction Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast (Knopf Canada).

Indie bookstores’ top sellers from Canadian-owned publishers in 2023:

1. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly Publications)
2. The Sleeping Car Porter, Suzette Mayr (Coach House Books)
3. 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, Bob Joseph (Page Two Books)
4. The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline (Cormorant Books)
5. Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice (ECW Press)
6. The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt (House of Anansi Press)
7. Hotline, Dimitri Nasrallah (Véhicule Press)
8. Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations, Richard Wagamese (Douglas and McIntyre)
9. Be a Good Ancestor, Leona Prince, Gabrielle Prince, and Carla Joseph, ill. (Orca Book Publishers)
10. To Track a Traitor, Iona Whishaw (TouchWood Editions)
11. Indian Horse, Richard Wagamese (Douglas and McIntyre) 
12. Every Child Matters, Phyllis Webstad and Karlene Harvey, ill.; Marie-Christine Payette, trans. (Medicine Wheel Publishing)
13. Unbroken, Angela Sterritt (Greystone Books)
14. The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, Astra Taylor (House of Anansi Press)
15. Sometimes I Feel Like a River, Danielle Daniel (Groundwood Books)
16. Still This Love Goes On, Buffy Sainte-Marie (Greystone Books)
17. Love You Forever (pb), Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw, ill. (Firefly Books)
18. All the Quiet Places, Brian Thomas Isaac (TouchWood Editions)
19. This Place: 150 Years Retold, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, et al. (HighWater Press/Portage & Main Press)
20. Wayi Wah!: Indigenous Pedagogies, Jo Chrona (Portage & Main Press)
21. A Is for Anemone, Roy Henry Vickers (Harbour Publishing)
22. The Paper Bag Princess (Classic Munsch), Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko, ill. (Annick Press)
23. Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions, Tomson Highway (House of Anansi Press)
24. Killer in King’s Cove, Iona Whishaw (TouchWood Editions)
25. Love You Forever (bb), Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw, ill. (Firefly Books)

Canadian independent bookstores’ bestselling Canadian titles of 2023:

1. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly Publications)
2. Greenwood, Michael Christie (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
3. Five Little Indians, Michelle Good (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins)
4. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté (Knopf Canada/PRHC)
5. Women Talking, Miriam Toews (Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
6. Bad Cree, Jessica Johns (HarperCollins)
7. The Sleeping Car Porter, Suzette Mayr (Coach House Books)
8. 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, Bob Joseph (Page Two Books)
9. The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline (Cormorant Books)
10. Old Babes in the Wood, Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
11. Meet Me at the Lake, Carley Fortune (Penguin Canada)
12. Barren Grounds, David Robertson (Puffin Canada/PRHC)
13. Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice (ECW Press)
14. Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel (Harper Perennial/HCP)
15. The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt (House of Anansi Press)
16. Moon of the Turning Leaves, Waubgeshig Rice, (Random House Canada)
17. Pageboy, Elliot Page (HarperCollins)
18. Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, John Vaillant (Knopf Canada/PRHC)
19. Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory, Sarah Polley (Penguin Canada/PRHC)
20. Really Good, Actually, Monica Heisey (HarperCollins)
21. Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada, Michelle Good (HarperCollins)
22. Sea of Tranquility, Emily St John Mandel (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins)
23. Doppelgänger: A Trip into the Mirror World , Naomi Klein (Knopf Canada/PRHC)
24. Outsider, Brett Popplewell (Collins/HarperCollins)
25. Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey/PRHC)