The Globe and Mail
While The Globe and Mail’s bestseller list is a macro snapshot of the books racking up sales across the entire country, individual bookstores are universes unto themselves, little kingdoms where No. 1 bestsellers might never make it across the drawbridge, while obscure-to-everyone-else-but-this-thriving-niche titles reign supreme instead. While some mirror our lists, others dance to a rhythm as idiosyncratic as the choices on a “staff picks” table.
So what are the bestselling titles in bookstores around Canada? We asked four booksellers for the insider intel on which books have had their registers recently.
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Type Books, Toronto
A very interesting bestseller at this Toronto bookstore in October was Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas by Clarice Lispector, translated from the Portuguese by Magaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson.
Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas by Clarice LispectorSupplied
For the uninitiated, Lispector is a Ukrainian-born, Brazilian novelist with a cult following, a sort of glamorous existentialist with a flair for the stream-of-consciousness. “Clarice Lispector is a longtime favorite of readers of our Plotless Fiction section, so we feel like we have a strong contingent of her fans shopping at Type,” the owners, Kyle Buckley and Claire Foster, said in an e-mailed statement. While her collected short stories came out to some acclaim a few years ago, this latest bestseller is a compendium of her newspaper writing from the sixties and seventies.
“Lispector fans haven’t had a chance to read much of this writing yet, and there are a lot of very enthusiastic Lispector fans,” opine the booksellers of this volume’s popularity. “The book is gorgeous as a physical object.”
Daisy Chain Book Co., Edmonton
Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van PeltSupplied
In Edmonton, Brandi Morpurgo reports a varied crop of bestsellers: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid, My Policeman by Bethan Roberts and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This selection is a fascinating insight into the myriad forces that can make a book popular on the internet. Hearthrob du jour Harry Styles, for example, stars in the new film adaptation of My Policeman. While this saw screaming crowds camping outside the red-carpet screening at TIFF to catch a glimpse of him, the fan frenzy also sends people into bookstores IRL.
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline MillerSupplied
“Madeline Miller is always popular on BookTok, but many people don’t trust overhyped books, so they prefer to hear about them from booksellers who can discuss them knowledgeably,” says Morpurgo of the Song of Achilles author. She also credits the store’s book-club picks and staff-recommendation displays for boosting a book’s sales.
Kidsbooks, Vancouver
While they do sell adult titles, it is, unsurprisingly, children’s titles that always make up the bestsellers at Kidsbooks, which has two locations in Vancouver. Fascinatingly, it’s a list that is often shaped by what is happening in the world at that moment, most likely as parents seek to help their children understand what’s going on around them through age-appropriate, trustworthy literary sources.
The recent death of the Queen, for example, saw an uptick in sales of books about Her Maj – the latest installment in Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara’s Little People, Big Dreams series has been a particular (and particularly well-timed) top choice in Elizabethan lit – and Alan Gratz’s new climate-change-themed title, Two Degrees, has been a hit among his large fanbase, says co-owner Kelly McKinnon. Graphic novels are always a big draw for the younger set. (Crunch by Kayla Miller and Enemies by Svetlana Chmakova are their current top sellers in the genre.)
Crunch by Kayla MillerSupplied
Odder by Katherine Applegate, another bestselling author, is sure to be one of the most popular middle grade novels of the year, according to McKinnon. “Novels in verse are always in demand and everyone loves sea otters!” Almost as much as they love horses, that is, as demonstrated by the success of “Vancouver superstar” Faith Erin Hicks’ equine-centric Ride On, which she calls “the perfect graphic novel for horse lovers.”
Librairie Saint-Henri Books, Montreal
Making Love With The Land by Joshua Whitehead and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.aruna.dutt678/The Globe and Mail
In the first week of October, there were two titles vying for top seller at this indie bookstore in Montreal: Making Love With The Land by Joshua Whitehead and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.
Joshua Whitehead is one of Canada’s leading Indigenous authors, and his newest book is his first delve into non-fiction, says store manager Alex Nierenhausen. “The essays within are some of the most intimate and poetic I’ve read.”
The McCurdy title, on the other hand, was less of a known quantity, although the memoir by a former Nickelodeon star certainly isn’t the kind to sit shyly on a display title. “The bold title alone begs for the book to be opened – and it lives up to all the hype,” says Nierenhausen. “The title, the cover, the content within is darkly fresh, brutally honest and word of mouth has done this book a lot of good.”
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