Recommended Reading Lists

My summertime reading is normally haphazard. It ranges from picking up books in the sale bin to those lying around the house bought last fall waiting to be read. This summer’s reading list is a little different. I am reading books with a purpose. As I am co-authoring a book that considers the resettlement of communities in Newfoundland in the 1960s, I am re-reading Michael Crummey’s Sweetland. Crummey has been in the news recently for his 2025 Dublin Literary Award for his wonderful novel The Adversary, but his earlier book deals with community relationships when some residents decide to leave their small, remote, and isolated community and move to a town that better serves their needs. Crummey writes of one person who refuses to leave. Given the interest in King Charles’ visit to read the Speech from the Throne and open Parliament in May, I picked up Colin Coates, Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada: Majesty, Ritual, and Rhetoric to understand the role of the monarchy in the 18th century Canada. It is an interesting study of Canada’s early king, Louis XIV. Coates examines how royal power was represented in ceremonies, symbols, and rhetoric in New France, a constitutional framework that continue with the British after 1763 and in many ways remain today. Finally, I have George Grant on my list. His 1965 classic, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, was prominently displayed at a conference I recently attended, and given the stoking of the patriotic fires by so many Canadians and their prime minister since the election of Mr. Trump, now is a moment to look back nearly 60 years to read why Grant believed Canada was doomed and why his book has sold more than 60,000 copies. 

I swear, I tried to come up with some lighter essential summer reads! But if you’re looking to lie on the beach, listen to the waves, and reflect on things like…  

Different forms of kinship, the complexities of inheritance, blood and soil nationalism, plants, radical gardening, you should read Unearthing by Kyo Maclear. 

For a stunning exploration of the wildness of grief, check out Something, Not Nothing by Sarah Leavitt. 

For a lively window into Jewish Kensington Market in the 1920’s and 1930’s, get yourself A Basket of Apples and Other Stories by Shirley Faessler. 

For a gorgeous memoir that weaves a family history of amnesia, civil war, and curanderos, and that challenges Western norms of truth, read The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras.

For a queer journey through refugee trails, gift yourself The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon.  

For a rare history that traces the fraught relationship between Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants and the Lakota at the turn-of-the-century, The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and An American Inheritance by Rebecca Clarren is for you! 

When it's hot I want books that are relentless, passionate, vivid: 

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart. A restless, steamy Canadian classic with gorgeous poetic prose. Yearn poolside. 

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Forever the book I most associate with summer. Sprawling, languid, biblical, hot. 

Wounds of Passion by bell hooks. An intimate memoir on writing to encourage more writing.  

The Parcel by Anosh Irani. Important, unrelenting, unforgettable.  

Cane by Jean Toomer. Striking vignettes on race and life in the deep south. Intense and poetic.  

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón. Healing and roadkill.  

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. Magical, queer, addictive.  

Auga Viva by Clarice Lispector. A kind of bible for me. For when the summer gets sultry, melancholic. 

I’ve just returned from the Canadian Atlantic Book Awards where my good friend Susie Taylor won The Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. Vigil — the title of her interlinked short stories — is really effective in understanding the nuances of a town in economic peril in Newfoundland and Labrador and the personal stories that accompany that reality. I’m currently reading Faber & Faber’s re-release of Ursula Parrott’s Ex-Wife. This book seems to be popping up everywhere on the internet right now and for good reason. It was originally published anonymously in the 1920’s but the language feels so tactile and contemporary — it’s quite good. Sex and the City in the 20’s if you will! 

I am doing a PhD in Irish literature so I’m reading a lot of contemporary Irish fiction. I recently loved Maggie Armstrong’s new collection out with Tramp Press called Old Romantics and I remember a lot of things about the collection — pretentious men and a farcical boom time Dublin — but I will never forget her lists and descriptions of food. Another great new Irish release is Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh, a book about growing up tough in the west of Ireland and finding kinship in sport.  

Outrageous and masterful books I read recently that I think may be unmatched at capturing current internet realities (and futures) are Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte and Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq. Other than the titles weirdly accompanying each other, they’re both about trying to find connection and how it’s ultimately sad and depraved sometimes.  

Everyone is telling me to read Audition by Katie Kitamura next, and I’m really excited for the FSG release of Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash. Her short stories Earth Angel brought me to tears in 2023. 

Summer is the time for short stories that can be digested in small bites poolside, beachside or in airports and planes, and also a time when our thoughts turn to home as we travel back there, or dream of doing so. Two short story collections that that scratch those itches for me are The Islands by Dionne Irving and Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke. The Islands traces the lives of Afro-Caribbean women in the Diaspora with exquisite language and richly drawn characters who leap from the pages; it is a book that makes me feel seen. Perfect Little Angels hauntingly explores queer and female identities in Nigeria, where home can be a dangerous though no less beloved place.  

If you’re looking for novels, may I suggest Everything is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe, where the author’s glorious depiction of the lush rainforests of Uganda beautifully offset the quiet but intense coming of age story of young Aine who has just learned that her sister is a lesbian, which threatens every connection to the land they both love. Finding Edward by Sheila Murray is a fascinating journey into the migration of a young man from Jamaica to Canada, and his immersion into the history of Edward, a railcar porter from Nova Scotia. 

For lighter but still substantive and satisfying reads, I highly recommend Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin, a rom-com with humour and heart, or Jameela Green Ruins Everything by Zarqa Nawaz, which takes a plot involving international terrorism and renders it both hilarious and imbued with meaning.  

And for something completely different, which defies categorization, The Other Valley by Scott Alexander is a glittering novel set in an alternate reality but whose characters wrestle with age-old issues very much of ours: love, loss, belonging, aging and regret. The language is stunning and I was absolutely dazzled throughout. 
 

I would read anything by Tomás González, and only wish all of his novels had been translated. This summer I will read his most recently translated novel, Fog at Noon, published by Archipelago Books. Columbia has produced so many great writers, and Tomás González is without a doubt one of its most talented, and incomparable. 

I just finished reading Bird Suit by Sydney Hegele. Their novel is immersive, beautiful, and occasionally nasty — one of my new favourites. Winter of Worship by Kayleb Rae Candrilli is a fantastic read as well. If you’re looking for poetry, this one is vivid and sticky with queer community. For nonfiction lovers, I’d recommend Wrong is Not My Name by Erica N. Cardwell. This book dives into complex child-parent relationships, being a black creative, and how our environments shape us. 

When I’m looking for a beach read, I want something so beautiful, emotionally devastating and jaw-dropping that I have to stop and read a passage aloud to my friends while they reapply their sunscreen. I want to be gossiping about the book between reading sessions like we gossip about our romantic lives and work drama. Beach reads of years past: Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, Miriam Toews’ road trip classic The Flying Troutmans and Sydney Hegele’s entrancing Bird Suit. 

This year I would recommend the recent reissue of Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies, Claudia Dey’s beautiful and frustratingly relatable Daughter, Madhur Armand’s To Place a Rabbit and Georgia Toews’ Nobody Asked For This. Summer is also the perfect time to catch up on literary magazines — grab a few at your local bookstore or check online for the perfect beach bag addition (edition?) 

For the past year or so, Janika Oza’s A History of Burning has been my go-to recommendation for people in a bit of a fiction rut. It is an absolutely stunning debut novel from Oza that moves across time and place and family history. The story is deeply moving and the prose is elegant and lyrical.  

Recently, I began maintaining a queue to bring order to my ever-growing reading list. If you were to recommend a book to me today, it would be number 42 in the queue. I'm quite faithful to the process, but every so often a book jumps the queue. Vinh Nguyen's memoir, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, is one of those books. The themes, form, and vulnerability of this book are so rich and testify to Nguyen's immense intelligence and insight. Finally, Everything and Nothing at All by Jenny Heijun Wills seamlessly combines academic research, cultural commentary, and first-person narrative into a series of beautiful and compelling essays. The collection is far-reaching, provocative, heartbreaking and intimate. 

I love a good biography, but how much better to get two-in-one? And with themes of politics and health care thrown into the mix, I was bound to love John Ibbitson’s The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson and the Making of Modern Canada. I learned so much about two giants of Canadian history who came from opposite sides of the political spectrum, and with almost opposite personalities. Find time in your summer reading plan for this non-fiction gem. You’ll understand Canada better, and you’ll be thankful for the two complicated central characters who gave their lives to public service and shaped the nation we call home. 

I am loving The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş, whom I met last winter at the Under the Volcano residency in Tepoztlán, Mexico. The grace and subdued, everyday mirth of her prose really gets to me, and her measured observations of feeling like an outsider in a European city were both relatable and enlightening. I've also been reading and re-reading Jorie Graham’s Runaway, and the layers of climate grief, mortality, and extinction feel jarring and resonant. The book works on a non-human time-scale that feels like it spans centuries and species — like the speaker is a planetary consciousness. Just woah. But also, it's a hard one, requires study.  

For me, the perfect summer read is like a vacation from my vacation, and I love escaping into the acid-washed dreamscape of Double Teenage by Joni Murphy. This is the story of two girls, Celine and Julie, living in suburban New Mexico in the 1990s who find unlikely magic in the desert heat and their budding identities as artists. An evocative coming-of-age novel that crackles with danger and longing.   

In my mind, summer = short story season, probably because each piece feels like a little road trip. If that’s true, then We So Seldom Look on Love by Barbara Gowdy is a delightfully strange, unforgettable journey into the warped mind of a national treasure, bursting with horror and delight. Reading this collection is like visiting a weird, travelling carnival on the outskirts of your hometown.  

So much of Edmund White’s writing is alive with sweaty nightclubs and summer trysts, and his recent death has me revisiting his work. A perfect summer read is A Boy’s Own Story, which to me defines the vulnerability and heart that made him one of the greatest gay writers of his generation.  

As for summer blockbusters, I am saving Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness for an empty August weekend. Few writers have his talent for capturing stillness and crafting a perfectly resonant sentence. 

My summers are a mix of light and heavy reading and I recommend that for everyone. I like my beach reads part giddy romance, part gut-wrenching truth about the sad, cruel world. Curiosities by Anne Fleming juggles both, and it’s mostly written in seventeenth century English, so that’s fun. I just read And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliot and it’s spellbinding and captivating and I’m the last one of my friends to read it so I need to spread the good word to anyone out there who hasn’t had the pleasure. The short story collection I always come back to if and when I’m struggling to write is Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. It’s got summer vibes mixed with the brutal colonization of Mars. My favourite ever. I’m also rereading Pure Colour by Sheila Heti, which I recommend reading specifically under a big tree. 

I am going to recommend Cold by Drew Hayden Taylor. 

Drew Hayden Taylor is a multi-talented writer who can move in and out between many genres and forms. The Curve Lake First Nations author does this effortlessly in Cold. This book is a thriller, a mystery, a horror — and it is funny, all at the same time. The book begins with a devastating plane crash that leaves a small plane broken apart, its few occupants stranded in the freezing, snowy north. One woman with an interesting background survives, and lives to tell the tale, one she later spins into a best-selling book. But, reviving and retelling memories comes at a cost, and this book is a dark and friendly lesson that warns us to be careful about who exactly is telling the story.