You all knew this gif was coming...
Happy 149th birthday Canada! To show our red-and-white pride, we wanted to have a look at the bestselling Canadian-authored books of 2015. (If you're looking for a breakdown of all the bestselling books in the Canadian market for 2015, The Canadian Book Market 2015 has more data than you could ever hope for, not to mention in-depth, subject-by-subject analysis. Instead of rehashing that research—a quick summary of the report's highlights can be found here in infographic form—we took to trusty SalesData and ran some reports to discover what the bestselling Canadian-authored books of 2015 were.)
Before we get into those titles, let's cover a few important facts:
What is a bestseller?
The oft-touted term "bestseller" is surrounded by a lot of misconceptions. For the purposes of this blog post, when we say bestseller, we're talking about the books that sold the most units during 2015 (specifically the 53 weeks that make up its selling period), filtered down to include just those titles that include the Canadian marker.
The Canadian marker
"Canadian book" can mean a lot of different things to different people: published in Canada, about Canada, published by a Canadian company, and more. For our purposes, the Canadian marker is something you can include in your book's metadata to indicate the author or contributor is Canadian (learn more here!). It's an important piece of data because it's vital to discoverability. We used it to put the following lists together, and many other national bestseller lists and media outlets (like the CBC) rely on it to know which books are authored by Canadians.
Now, to the books!
Top 10 Canadian-authored books of 2015
The Oh She Glows Cookbook, Angela Liddon
Fifteen Dogs, André Alexis
Love You Forever, Robert Munsch
Hockey Towns, Ron MacLean and Kristie McLellan Day
Shift Work, Tie Domi
The Illegal, Lawrence Hill
The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King
Open Heart, Open Mind, Clara Hughes
Fantastic Cities, Steve McDonald
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews
Quite a few of these are multiple award winners and have appeared on national bestseller lists published by the media. But is that causation, or just correlation? In 2014, BookNet did a study on the impact of award wins and nominations on consumer book purchases. We found that 40% of consumers didn't know if they'd purchased an award-nominated book and 62% of respondents claimed they would have gone through with their purchase whether or not their book had won or been nominated for an award. Yet, our all-Canadian top 10 list is populated with big winners like André Alexis (2015's Scotiabank Giller Prize winner), Miriam Toews, Lawrence Hill, and Thomas King, whose award-winning title The Inconvenient Indian was published in 2013 and continues to be a popular choice for Canadian readers, suggesting that the awareness generated by awards buzz can still trickle down to consumers, whether they're aware of it or not.
The Oh She Glows Cookbook was published in April 2014, yet it still occupies the number one spot, even outselling heavy-hitting non-fiction titles published in 2015 like Shift Work and even the only Canadian-authored colouring book to make the list: Fantastic Cities. As an enduring title, it sits alongside 2013's The Inconvenient Indian and the fourth-bestselling paperback children's book of all time according to Publisher's Weekly, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, which was published in 1995. The rest of the titles on the list were either published for the first time in 2015, or released in a new format.
60% of the top 10 books are non-fiction, and there is a 50/50 split on hardcover and paperback formats. Not to get into too much wild speculation about the Canadian consciousness, but this list seems to suggest that what Canadians cared about in 2015 were solid literary fiction, healthy eating, indigenous relations, and, of course, hockey.
Top 10 Canadian-authored books of 2015 - Fiction
Fifteen Dogs, André Alexis
The Illegal, Lawrence Hill
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews
The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill
The Golden Son, Shilpi Somaya Gowda
The Vinyl Cafe Turns the Page, Stuart McLean
After the War Is Over, Jennifer Robson
The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood
Room (Mass Market), Emma Donoghue
Room (Trade Paperback), Emma Donoghue
Diving deeper into this data rabbit hole, we separated bestsellers by fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is pretty much a handful of some of Canada's most beloved authors: Lawrence Hill is on here twice (probably with a little help from the CBC adaptation of The Book of Negroes; you go Lawrence); and Emma Donoghue's Room movie tie-in edition is hanging out near the bottom of the list in both its mass market and trade paperback edition (both were published in 2015).
Top 10 Canadian-authored books of 2015 - Non-fiction
The Oh She Glows Cookbook, Angela Liddon
Hockey Towns, Ron MacLean and Kristie McLellan Day
Shift Work, Tie Domi
The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King
Open Heart, Open Mind, Clara Hughes
Fantastic Cities, Steve McDonald
A House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout
Quinn, Dan Robson
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield
You Are Here, Chris Hadfield
It's interesting to note that half of the top 10 non-fiction titles are biographies or memoirs about people that could all be considered heroes in one respect or another. From Olympians, astronauts, and sports heroes to a memoir from a strong woman overcoming her time imprisoned in Somalia, all of these authors are probably a hero or role model to someone.
Top 10 Canadian-authored books of 2015 - Juvenile
The Rule of Three, Eric Walters
The Rule of Three: Fight for Power, Eric Walters
Empire of Night, Kelly Armstrong
The Blackthorn Key, Kevin Sands
When Everything Feels Like the Movies, Raziel Reid
Walking Home, Eric Walters
We Are All Made of Molecules, Susin Nielsen
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Masterminds, Gordon Korman
Whatever After: Fairest of All, Sarah Mlynowski
Looking at the top Canadian-authored, juvenile bestsellers is looking at a solid wall of Munsch, but by filtering the results to only include those books suitable for ages 8 and up, we've managed to put together a middle grade/YA list. Even so, I am a bit disappointed. There are glimmers of diversity peeking through here or there—Raziel Reid's When Everything Feels Like the Moviesis an extremely important novel for LGBT+ teens (and a great choice for upcoming pride weekend!), and Eric Walters tells a beautiful and unforgettable story in Walking Home, inspired by a 200-kilometre trek through Kenya that he himself walked—however, I think this list just enforces a need for more diverse, Canadian-authored literature, especially for young adults, now more than ever.
This long weekend, we hope you all hold your Canadian authors close to your hearts. Happy Canada Day!
