Although the front pages of the current volume of an annual anthology raise a couple of questions, the stories that follow range wide in theme, style, and tone. They’re impressive too, from start to finish. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Best Canadian Stories 2026, selected by Zsuzsi Gartner (Windsor, Biblioasis, 2025) $24.94 / 9781771966788
“Here, as later in the case of Steven Galloway at UBC, she speaks her mind, for, whatever else, Atwood is unwaveringly her own woman. Nevertheless, and in this case specifically, anyone interested less in her well-documented public life than in her social and political views, would do better to read the more specific, elaborate, and focused essays and articles assembled in Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004-2021.” Christopher Levenson reviews Margaret Atwood’s Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2025): $45 / 9780771096433
Reissued 2014 novel recounts a father and son’s journey to a backcountry destination: “In Wagamese’s prose, the descriptions of these places are so skilfully rendered that the ugliness becomes beautiful. In the rhythmic, pulsing language, you can smell the empty bottles, the smoke and ashes, the unwashed bodies, the frying bologna.” —Ryan Frawley reviews Medicine Walk, by Richard Wagamese (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2025) $22.00 / 9780771023521
Further selections from BCR’s community of reviewers…
BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stayed with them. Once again, “eclectic” is our word of the year.
BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stayed with them. Once again, “eclectic” is our word of the year.
“It’s rare to find a holiday book that resists the expectation of comfort. Better Next Year is one such example. These stories sit with estrangement, failed reconciliations, uneasy rituals, and trauma.” Selena Mercuri reviews Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies, by JJ Lee (ed.) (New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2023) $24.95 / 9781990160271
In collection of poetry where nature takes pride of place, a writer “shows a strong understanding of poetic craft,” relating lyrical tales that are “personal, observant, moving, and expansive” and “made potent through a distinctive working of language and image.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews All of Us Hidden, by Joanna Streetly (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press: 2025) $20.00 / 9781773861722
“This publication is timely because it invites us to take a step back from the headlines, narratives, and counter-narratives, and to learn who the Secwépemc people were and are; to appreciate their connection with their lands; and to understand the social relationships and responsibilities which foster mutual belonging in their communities.” Richard Butler reviews Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw, by Marianne Ignace and Ronald E. Ignace (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025) $39.95 / 9780228026358 (paperback release)
“One of the book’s most important implications is that women’s rights are hard won, by women themselves, rather than awarded by a benevolent government or other entity. The stories in the book also show how although an individual woman might have failed in her quest for a legal remedy, she laid a path for others to build on.” Janet Pollock Millar reviews Women Who Woke Up the Law: Inside the Cases that Changed Women’s Rights in Canada
by Karin Wells (Toronto: Second Story Press, 2025) $24.95 / 978177264191
“Salt Spring Island-based Acken has written a cookbook both inspiring and surprisingly practical. It’s an homage to the West Coast and the foods we can incorporate into our baking.” Trish Bowering reviews Thyme for Dessert: Sweets & Treats Inspired by the Flavours of the Pacific Northwest Coast, by DL Acken, with Aurelia Louvet (Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2025) $30 / 9781771514804
YA horror set at a spiritual retreat that isn’t: “Structurally impressive, mythologically rich, and recurrently dark, Cheng has carefully infused just enough humour and hope in a novel where it’s easy to root for the good guys.” —Jessica Poon reviews Beautiful Brutal Bodies, by Linda Cheng (Toronto: Listening Library, 2025) $20.99 / 9781250865816
“I find myself in somewhat similar circumstances to Honda, even though our life stories and backgrounds are quite different. I am also a person in her mid-fifties with a daughter who has recently left home, and I too am faced with a time of transformation. Thus, I was riveted by the book, connected in a way that was meaningful and relevant.” Trish Bowering reviews Hidden Flowers
by Keiko Honda (Vancouver: Heritage House, 2025) $29.95 / 9781772035605
A charming and upbeat picture book takes a brisk and enthused tour through sports history to discuss women who broke with convention. A heavy skirt that’s too cumbersome for swimming? Grab some scissors! —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews This Skirt Won’t Work: How Women Athletes Changed Their Clothes and Changed the Game, by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Eva Byrne) (Naperville: Sourcebooks Explore, 2025) $28.99 / 9781728267845
“One of the most compelling aspects of the collection is its counterculture energy. There is a clear rejection of the idea that Canada’s value lies in its utility to the United States, a challenge to a worldview that reduces national identity to geopolitical convenience. The essays ripple with a sense of defiance that is both invigorating and necessary, particularly in an era when political rhetoric often blurs the line between hyperbole and threat.” Jeffrey Stychin reviews Canada Is Not the 51st F**king State! Canadians Face Off Against Donald Trump’s Worst Idea Ever (New Westminster: Cosmic Cranium Press, 2025) $27.99 / 9781069072610
An author “enamoured with the engine’s colourful history and ongoing survival,” melds historical narratives and storytelling to create appealing glimpses of the engine in action, whether in 1886, 1947, or 1964. —Ron Verzuh reviews Engine 374 and Me: True (and Partly True) Stories of a Celebrated CPR Locomotive, by Lisa Anne Smith (Vancouver: Time Talk Press, 2024) $20.00 / 9780968786512
The fourth volume of an epic series—with “two branching timelines that have a massive crossover of characters, cities, histories, and wars”—grabs attention for its deft and artful handling of complexity, and for its queer inclusivity. —Myshara McMyn reviews Wake (The Call of the Rift, Book Four), by Jae Waller (Toronto: ECW Press, 2023) $23.95 / 9781770414594
“This is Cecilia’s story and it is about a truly remarkable woman, her many accomplishments, and the lives of a quintessential Cariboo family of mixed Indigenous and European blood lines.” David Williams reviews One Arrow Left: A Memoir of Secwépemc Knowledge Keeper Cecilia DeRose, by Cecilia Dick DeRose w/ Sage Birchwater (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025) $26 / 9781773861586
“The lines are tough and full of bones, like dried salmon, but respond well to chewing”: epic in size and scope, a posthumous volume grapples with literary and cultural inheritance, as well as the desecrations of BC’s colonial-capitalist history. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Recarving the Chrysoprase Bowl (The Book of Gates, Vol. 1), by Tom McGauley (Afterword by Luke Franklin) (Moncton: Galleon Books, 2025) $29.99 / 9781998122080
Finding inspiration in a haiku by Matsuo Bashō, an author leads young readers on a strikingly-coloured and capricious journey into Edo-era Japan… and their own creativity. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews A Pond, a Poet, and Three Pests, by Caroline Adderson (illustrated by Lauren Tamaki) (Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2025) $21.99 / 9781773068930
Family, friendship, prejudice, and loss are thoughtfully explored in a pair of chapter books for young readers. “There’s such valuing of connection in these pages, and an honesty to the whole,” writes our reviewer. —Alison Acheson reviews A Promise to Protect, by Nikki Bergstresser (Victoria: Heritage House, 2025) $14.95 / 9781772035438 and I Won’t Feel This Way Forever, by Kim Spencer (Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2025) $14.95 / 9781459838208