Emma Knight (Caitlin Cronenberg); Arley Nopra; Iona Whishaw (Anick Violette); Jamie Chai Yun Liew; Omar El Akkad (Kateshia Pendergrass)

As 2025 reaches its half-way mark, a look at the bestselling books from all Canadian authors and books from Canadian authors published by Canadian publishers at independent bookstores reveals an interesting difference in the presence of frontlist titles: for Canadian-published titles, the backlist reigns supreme, while more than half of the top-selling titles by Canadian authors from all publishers were published in the last 18 months.

Bookmanager has provided Q&Q with lists of the top-selling titles by Canadian authors published by Canadian-owned publishers, as well as a bestseller list of all Canadian authors, which includes titles published by the multinationals and other non-Canadian publishers. On average, 255 independent booksellers provided the data for sales.

In the Canadian authors list, more than half of the top sellers were published within the last 18 months: 11 published in 2025, and four in 2024 (including one paperback edition of a 2022 hardcover).

In the list of Canadian-published titles, only seven of the top 25 sellers were published in 2025 and six in 2024, with a substantial number from the deep backlist – and very similar to bestsellers lists of recent years.

Download PDF of the top-selling titles from Canadian-owned publishers
and top-selling Canadian-authored titles for the first half of 2025.

As is common in the first half of the year, the five Canada Reads finalists from this year’s battle of the books are scattered among the top 25 bestsellers, though not as tightly bunched at the very top of the list as in previous years.

In the list of all Canadian-authored titles Jamie Chai Yun Liew’s Dandelion is the highest seller among the Canada Reads finalists, coming in at #3; followed by Emma Hooper’s Etta and Otto and Russell and James at #6; Wayne Johnstone’s memoir Jennie’s Boy: A Newfoundland Childhood (pb) at #8; Canada Reads winner  A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-nee Chacaby and Mary Louisa Plummer sitting at #12; and Watch Out for Her by Samantha Bailey at #16.

World events and Canadian politics had a noticeable impact on the titles readers reached for this spring. At the top of the Canadian-authored list is Omar El Akkad’s first nonfiction book, published in April, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, in which he examines his relationship with the West in light of the response to the horrors taking place in Gaza. And at #2 is the 2022 title from new Prime Minister Mark Carney, Values: Building a Better World for All.

In the top-selling titles published by Canadian publishers, works about key figures in Canadian politics make appearances: Mark Bourrie’s Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre, published in late March, gave Biblioasis the #8 spot and Catherine Tsalikis’s biography of Chrystia Freeland, Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill, published in late December 2024 by House of Anansi, came it at #15. Former NDP MP Charlie Angus took 17th spot with Dangerous Memory: Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed, his look at the impacts of the cultural and political shifts of the 1980s.

Whether prompted by the political and cultural climate of our neighbours to the south or the airing of the final season of the TV series based on the novel, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale showed up for the first time (#13 on the Canadian authors list) since Q&Q started featuring these semi-annual lists in 2022.

Other books about contemporary issues that make an appearance are: On Book Banning: Or, How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy by Ira Wells published in February (#16) and Ian Williams’s fall Massey Lecture, What I Mean to Say: Remaking Conversation in Our Time is at #21. In the Canadian-authored list, Carol Off’s fall 2024 At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage sits at #16.

Iona Whishaw continues to have multiple titles from the Lane Winslow mystery series on the bestselling list of titles from Canadian publishers, while two different editions of Carley Fortune’s One Golden Summer appear in the top 25 of the Canadian authors list.

More prominently than ever, Canadian-published works by Indigenous writers, including A Two-Spirit Journey, dominate the list with 11 of the 25 top titles. Cherie Dimaline and Waubgeshig Rice’s debut novels remain strong sellers; and eight years after his death, Richard Wagamese’s legacy continues with three of his titles in the top 25. Along with Bob Joseph’s 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act (#9), Page Two Books scores two other positions on the list with the April release of Rose LeMay’s Ally Is a Verb: A Guide to Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples (#11) and Carolyn Roberts’s 2024 title Re-Storying Education: Decolonizing Your Practice Using a Critical Lens at #24.

Other new titles by Indigenous authors on the list are: I Am Connected by Ḵung Jaadee and Carla Joseph from Medicine Wheel Publishing (#10) and Bruce McIvor’s Indigenous Rights in One Minute: What You Need to Know to Talk Reconciliation from Nightwood Editions (#22).

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, David A. Robertson, Amanda Peters, and the late Murray Sinclair all appear on the Canadian-authored list.

One final trend that seems to be solidifying its presence after first appearing on the 2024 end-of-year list is the popularity of graphic novels for young readers. While children’s titles from Robert Munsch are perennially in the top 25 Canadian-published books, graphic novels (published in these instances in the U.S.) are making definite in-roads on the bestseller list: Arley Nopra’s contribution to The Baby-sitters Club series, Mallory and the Trouble with Twins, comes in at #7 on the Canadian authors list, while Nathan Fairbairn and Michele Assarasakorn’s PAWS: Hazel Has Her Hands Full sits at #22 and Cassandra Calin’s The New Girl sits at #23.