Top 25

The top English-Canadian books as chosen by the University of Toronto Bookstore Review in April 1999.

1. The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence (1974)
2. The Wars, by Timothy Findley (1977)
3. Lives of Girls & Women, by Alice Munro (1971)
4. Apprenticeship Duddy Kravitz, by Mordecai Richler (1959)
5. Beautiful Losers, by Leonard Cohen (1966)
6. The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields (1987)
7. The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence (1964)
8. Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies (1970)
9. The Edible Woman, by Margaret Atwood (1969)
10. The Hockey Sweater and Other Stories, by Roch Carrier (1979)
11. In the Skin of A Lion, by Michael Ondaatje (1987)
12. The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje (1992)
13. Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery(1908)
14. Who Has Seen the Wind, by W. O. Mitchell (1947)
15. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, by Stephen Leacock (1912)
16. A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry (1995)
17. Alligator Pie, by Dennis Lee (1974)
18. The Hidden Room: Collected Poems, by P. K. Page (1997)
19. Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, by Mordecai Richler (1975)
20. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary edited, by Katharine Barber (1998)
21. Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat (1963)
22. Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald (1996)
23. The Great Code, by Northrop Frye (1982)
24. Gutenberg Galaxy, by Marshall McLuhan (1962)
25. Survival, by Margaret Atwood (1972)

Remaining 75

The honourable mentions, sorted in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

• Dig up My Heart: selected poems of Milton Acorn 1952-1983 (1983)
• Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa, by Andre Alexis (1994)
• Selected Poems 1966-1984, by Margaret Atwood (1990)
• Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood (1972)
• Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, General editors, Eugene Benson and William Toye (1997, 2nd ed.)
• Mad Shadows, by Marie-Claire Blais (1960)
• The Discovery of Insulin, by Michael Bliss (1982)
• Land to Light On, by Dionne Brand (1997)
• More Joy in Heaven, by Morley Callaghan (1937)
• That Summer in Paris, by Morley Callaghan (1963)
• Elizabeth and After, by Matt Cohen (1999)
• The Garden Going On Without Us, by Lorna Crozier (1985)
• Leaven of Malice, by Robertson Davies (1954)
• The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks, by Robertson Davies (1985)
• The Rebel Angels, by Robertson Davies (1981)
• The Historical Atlas of Canada edited, by William J. Dean et al. (1987-1998)
• Lord Durham's Report (1839)
• The Game, by Ken Dryden (1984)
• Bear, by Marian Engel (1976)
• The Piano Man's Daughter, by Timothy Findley (1995)
• Anatomy of Criticism, by Northrop Frye (1957)
• Selected Stories, by Mavis Gallant (1996)
• Neuromancer, by William Gibson (1984)
• We So Seldom Look On Love, by Barbara Gowdy (1992)
• Lament For a Nation, by George Grant (1965)
• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography edited, by Francess G. Halpenny, Ramsay Cook and Jean Hamelin. (1966 - present)
• Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, by Tomson Highway (1990)
• Broken Ground, by Jack Hodgins (1998)
• The Elizabeth Stories, by Isabel Huggan (1984)
• Empire and Communications, by Harold Innis (1950)
• Systems of Survival, by Jane Jacobs (1992)
• The Fionavar Tapestry, by Guy Gavriel Kay (1984-1986)
• One Good Story That One, by Thomas King (1993)
• Obasan, by Joy Kogawa (1981)
• Nightwatch: New and Selected Poems 1968-1996, by Dennis Lee (1996)
• The Self-Completing Tree, by Dorothy Livesay (1986)
• The Story of Canada, by Janet Lunn (1992)
• Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, by Ann-Marie MacDonald (1990)
• The Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen, 2 Volumes (1994)
• Two Solitudes, by Hugh MacLennan (1945)
• The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, by Alistair MacLeod (1976)
• The Canadian Encylopedia edited, by James. H. Marsh (1988 2nd. ed.)
• Understanding Media, by Marshall McLuhan (1964)
• Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels (1996)
• Roughing It in the Bush, by Susannah Moodie (1852)
• Black Robe, by Brian Moore (1985)
• The Luck of Ginger Coffey, by Brian Moore (1960)
• The Progress of Love, by Alice Munro (1986)
• The Martyrology, by bp Nichol (1972-1990)
• The Case of Emily V., by Keith Oatley (1993)
• The Cinnamon Peeler, by Michael Ondaatje (1992)
• Coming Through Slaughter, by Michael Ondaatje (1976)
• E. J. Pratt: Complete Poems (1988)
• The Collected Poems, by Al Purdy (1986)
• Home Game, by Paul Quarrington (1983)
• Lives of the Saints, by Nino Ricci (1990)
• Nights Below Station Street, by David Adams Richards (1988)
• St. Urbain's Horseman, by Mordecai Richler (1971)
• As For Me and My House, by Sinclair Ross (1941)
• The Tin Flute, by Gabrielle Roy (1947)
• Voltaire's Bastards, by John Ralston Saul (1992)
• Swann, by Carol Shields (1987)
• The Engineer of Human Souls, by Josef Skvorecky (1984)
• By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, by Elizabeth Smart (1945)
• Shadowmaker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen, by Rosemary Sullivan (1995)
• Les Belles-Soeurs, by Michel Tremblay (1968)
• Away, by Jane Urquhart (1993)
• Man Descending, by Guy Vanderhaege (1982)
• No Fixed Address, by Aritha van Herk (1986)
• The Double Hook, by Sheila Watson (1959)
• The Temptations of Big Bear, by Rudy Wiebe (1973)
• Swamp Angel, by Ethel Wilson (1954)
• Anarchism and Anarchists: Essays, by George Woodcock (1992)
• Stolen Continents, by Ronald Wright (1992)
• Maestro, by Tim Wynne-Jones (1995)

As selected by Tricia Kenderdine, manager of the Victoria University Bookstore; Annette Knott, children’s book buyer for the U of T Bookstore; Nicholas Pashley, editor of The U of T Bookstore Review and Purchasing Manager of the U of T Bookstore; and Nick Power and Maylin Scott, co-ordinators of the U of T Bookstore Reading Series.

CanLit Links

>This site is not intended as a resource for Canadian Literature, for that please visit:

• LuckingNet’s terrific Canadian Literature section (designed by a professor for university course on CanLit)
• The Canadian Literature Archive
• Canadian Literature Quarterly is an academic publication about the subject
• Open Directory on Canadian Literature