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Still trying to find that perfect book for someone on your list this holiday season? You’re in luck. CBC Books has rounded up all our best books of 2025 in one handy place.
Here are our No. 1 picks for the top Canadian fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics and kids books of the year.
Fiction
Our top pick: Endling by Maria Reva
Endling tells the story of three women whose lives are changed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yeva, a scientist, is obsessed with breeding rare snails, funding her work by dating Westerners who have come to Ukraine on romance tours. Sisters Nastia and Solomiya are also entwined in the marriage industry to figure out what happened to their mother. When the war begins, their plans are foiled and the hard truths of war are examined.
- How the war in Ukraine upended Maria Reva’s life — and her debut novel
Maria Reva was born in Ukraine and grew up in New Westminster, B.C., where she currently lives. Her short story collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear won the 2022 Kobzar Literary Award and was on the 2020 Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize shortlist. Her debut novel Endling was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Reva is a judge for the 2026 CBC Short Story Prize.
Nonfiction
Our top pick: The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse by Vinh Nguyen
In his memoir, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, Vinh Nguyen retraces his family’s journey from post-war Vietnam to Canada — and how this moment in history resonates with experiences in the diaspora today. The work is a genre-bending mix of real-life experiences, meticulous research and inventive history to explore the nature of family, immigration and identity.
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse was a finalist for the 2025 Governor General Literary Award for nonfiction and was shortlisted for the 2025 Toronto Book Award.
- Vinh Nguyen’s memoir reflects on the complex legacy of the Vietnam War
Nguyen is a Toronto-based writer, editor and educator whose work has been published in Brick, Literary Hub and The Malahat Review. He is a nonfiction editor at The New Quarterly, where he curates an ongoing series on refugee, migrant and diasporic writing. He was shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and won the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature. In 2022, he was a Lambda Literary nonfiction fellow.
Comics
Our top pick: Muybridge by Guy Delisle
- Canadian comics we can’t wait to read in spring 2025
In 1870s Sacramento, photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes on a challenge from railroad tycoon Leland Stanford — to prove whether a horse’s hooves ever leave the ground while galloping. In the process, Muybridge unknowingly pioneers time-lapse photography, laying the foundation for motion pictures as we know them.
Despite his groundbreaking discoveries, his life is marked by betrayal, intrigue and tragedy. Acclaimed cartoonist Guy Delisle captures the highs and lows of Muybridge’s career, bringing his story to life with sharp detail and emotional depth.
- Graphic novelist Guy Delisle brings readers into the heart of places both close to home and around the world
Guy Delisle is an critically-acclaimed cartoonist originally from Québec City. His books include Burma Chronicles, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Pyongyang and Shenzhen.
Poetry
Our top pick: Wellwater by Karen Solie
Wellwater is a poetry collection that explores the intersection of cultural, economic and personal ideas of value, addressing aging, housing and environmental and economic crises. Wellwater won the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, the 2025 T.S. Eliot Prize and was a co-winner of the 2025 Forward Prize for Poetry.
Celebrating persistence in the natural world, Wellwater offers a message that hope is the only way to address these issues.
- Saskatchewan-born poet Karen Solie’s Wellwater shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
Karen Solie is the author of several poetry collections, including Short Haul Engine, Modern and Normal, Pigeon, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out and The Caiplie Caves. Solie teaches half-time in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews and spends the remainder of the year in Canada.
