30 must-read books to start 2021
From debut novels to sequels and short stories, there is much to enjoy
If 2020 was a year in books like no other, then winter and spring 2021 is proving to be a season like no other. So many publishing houses held books back last year, not knowing how they were going to market them, what demand was going to be like, how to get the word out — that now we’re left with a bumper crop — and more to come throughout the year. Here are some of the books that have caught my eye.
The Push, Ashley Audrain (Viking, Jan. 5) This one’s on a lot of most-anticipated lists — when Audrain submitted the manuscript for this, she landed a twobook deal worth millions. And for good reason: “The Push” is a page-turner of a read about motherhood that touches on all our deepest fears and neuroses.
The Crash Palace, And r ew Wedderburn (Coach House, Jan. 12)
Wedderburn’s novel “The Milk Chicken Bomb” received a nod for the Amazon First Novel Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin literary award; this second novel — featuring a character named Audrey Cole who goes on a road trip to The Crash Palace, where people pay to party in the wilderness — promises to be just as quirky.
Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas (HarperCollins, Jan. 12) Angie Thomas became an international phenomenon with the publication of her young adult book “The Hate You Give.” In this followup, she revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of that first book to tell the story of Maverick Carter in what promises to be a powerful exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.
Gutt e r Chi l d , Ja e l Richardson (HarperCollins, Jan. 26) Richardson is well known as the founder of the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) and her appearances on CBC’s “Q” — her debut novel is the story of a world divided into the privileged mainland and into the policed Gutter. Main protagonist Elimina Dubois is taken from her mother in the Gutter to be raised in the land of opportunity.
No One I s Ta l k i n g About This, Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead Books, Feb. 16) Lockwood is a poet, and a respected one at that, but you might know her best from her memoir “Priestdaddy” and her tweets, which makes the question she asks with this debut novel — Is there life after the internet? — one she knows intimately.
The Mission House, Carys Davis (Scribner, Feb 16)
Welsh author Carys Davis is a singular voice; her 2017 short story collection “The Redemption of Galen Pike” won multiple awards and was a Star Top Ten book of the year. This novel tells the story of an expat fleeing the U.K. for post-colonial India — and we expect many twists and a unique perspective in what seems familiar territory.
The Centaur’s Wife, by Amanda Leduc (RandomHouse Canada, Feb. 16) Leduc’s book of essays that came out last year “Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space” (Coach House Books, 2020), interrogated the negative portrayal of disabled people in lit. Now she’s out with a fairy tale of her own that features a disabled heroine. “In the beginning a horse fell in love with a woman.” Read on.
Her Name Was Margaret, by Denise Davy (Wolsak and Wynn, Feb. 23) Former Hamilton Spectator reporter Davy tells the story of Margaret Jacobsen, a homeless woman who battled mental illness and went in and out of the healthcare system until she died in a sub shop in Hamilton in the 1990s. Initially Jacobsen and, later, her family, gave Davy access to her medical files and family history, allowing for that rare thing: a full biography of a homeless person, who is often
nameless and faceless.
Return of the Trickster, Eden Robinson (March 6, Knopf Canada) This is one of the most anticipated Canadian books of the season. It’s the third book in Robinson’s Trickster trilogy — yes, the CBC TV series was made even before the trilogy was finished. We again meet Jared Martin, who finally knows for sure he’s the only one of his biological dad’s 535 kids who’s a Trickster, too.
The Committed, Vi et Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press, March 2) The sequel to “The Sympathizer,” winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, “The Committed” follows the “man of two minds” as he comes as a refugee to France and turns his hand to capitalism, dealing drugs in 1980s Paris, but unable to escape his past.
Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, by Jordan B. Peterson (Random House of Canada, March 2) Love him or hate him, U of T prof Jordan Peterson is out with the followup to his bestselling “12 Rules For Life.” This one’s about finding a balance between chaos and order.
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro, (Knopf Canada, March 2) This is the first book out from Ishiguro since he won the Nobel Prize three years ago. It tells the story of Klara, an
“Artificial Friend” who tells her story from her place in the store, observing customers who come to browse.
Nothing The Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl The Cowboy, by Gary Barwin (Random House Canada, March 9) There are few voices in Canadian writing as original as Hamilton’s Gary Barwin. He’s a poet, musician
and author of, among dozens of other books, the Giller-shortlisted “Yiddish For Pirates” with a 500-yearold Jewish parrot as narrator; this one riffs off classic westerns and takes place after the 1941 Nazi invasion of Lithuania.
Begin By Telling, Meg Remy (Book*hug, March 16) This one’s experimental, which is what you might expect from Remy, of the experimental pop band U.S. Girls. Here she takes stock of American culture: “Never forget / to connect the dots / This book is an attempt to connect a couple.”
The Speed of Mercy, Christy Ann Conlin (House of Anansi, March 23) Nova Scotia writer Conlin’s work has been described by the Star as “eerie and haunting”; she’s also very funny and this book features characters you don’t usually see: older, rural women, childhood betrayal and a dark family secret of murder.
The Relatives, by Camilla Gibb, (Doubleday Canada, March 23) From the author of “Sweetness in the Belly” and “This Is Happy,” this novel explores what it means to be a family in our modern world. Tess and Emily are just separated and fighting over the ownership of embryos, while the anonymous sperm donor is being held captive in Somalia. New Yorkers: A City and Its People In Our Time, by Craig Taylor (Doubleday Canada, March 23) In “Londoners” he created a deep and nuanced picture and history of the city with first-person interviews from all sorts of people who describe who they are, what they do and how they live. The technique develops a wonderful tapestry — and now he’s bringing that structure to bear on
New York.
My Mother’s Daughter: A Memoir of Struggle and Triumph, by Perdita Felicien (Doubleday Canada, March 30) A powerful and inspiring book from one of Canada’s top athletes — twotime Olympian and world championship hurdler Felicien’s mother, Catherine, came to Canada from St. Lucia in 1974 to be a nanny. This is the story of their life together, the power of her own talent and her mother’s encouragement.
Good Company A Novel Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (HarperCollins, April 6) You remember “The Nest” from a few years ago — the debut novel about relatives feuding over an inheritance that was the bestselling book of 2016? In this new book, Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than 20 years when everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended. Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thi n g : Es says, Laur e n Hough (Knopf, April13) As an adult, Hough has been, among other things, a U.S. airman and a cable guy, the latter about which she wrote in a famously powerful essay in the Huffington Post in 2018. As a child she grew up in the infamous cult The Children Of God. These essays mine her eclectic, fascinating life and her efforts to create her own identity.
Murder On The Inside: The True Story of the Deadly 1971 Riot at Kingston Penitentiary, Catherine Fogarty (Biblioasis, April 13) Sometimes you can learn a lot about the present by looking at the past. Fogarty delves into a 50-yearold incident at the Kingston Pen that made headlines around the world when prisoners protested their treatment.
Molly Falls to Earth, Maria Mutch (Simon & Schuster Canada, April 27) Maria Mutch grabbed attention with her short story collection “When We Were Birds,” her memoir “Know The Knight,” was a Governor General’s Award finalist, and so this, her first novel, pegged as “an inventive exploration of time, absence and desire” is highly anticipated.
Hana Khan Carries On, by Uzma Jalaluddin, (HarperCollins, April 6) Jalaluddin, who writes a column for the Star, gained attention for her Muslim chick-lit book “Ayesha at Last.” This next romantic comedy is set in two competing halal restaurants.
Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend, Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump, by Ben Philippe (HarperCollins, April 27) Phillippe was born in Haiti, raised in Montreal and is now based in New York. His young adult “The Field Guide to the North American Teenager” made waves. In this memoir, he talks about his childhood, “takes his role as your new black friend seriously, providing original and borrowed wisdom on stereotypes, slurs, the whole “swimming thing,” etc. Perfect for these times.
Swimming Back to Trout River, Linda Rui Feng (Simon & Schuster Canada, May 4) A lyrical debut novel set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution that follows a father’s quest to reunite his family before his daughter’s momentous birthday.
While Justice Sleeps, Stacey Abrams (Knopf, May 11) This book is as timely as it is anticipated. Georgia politician, lawyer and activist Stacey Abrams has written a novel, a legal thriller set in the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan (Knopf, May 25) Flanagan won the 2014 Booker Prize for his book “Narrow Road To The Deep North.” His eighth novel is a magic realism story about family and climate change.
Letters in a Bruised Cosmos by Liz Howard — (McClelland and Stewart, June 7) Howard won the prestigious 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize for her debut poetry collection “Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent.” This new collection is one people have waited for.
Care Of, Ivan Coyote (McClelland & Stewart, June 8) In the early days of the coronavirus lockdown, Coyote was faced with many cancelled shows. To keep busy, they began to answer the backlog of mail and correspondences: emails, letters, social media messages etc... This book combines the most powerful of those letters and the responses Coyote sent.
This Eden, Ed O’Loughlin (Anansi, June 13) The IrishCanadian author’s most recent novel, “Minds of Winter,” was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. This one is described as “an exhilarating technothriller and modern spy novel reminiscent of ... the golden age of international espionage fiction.”