CBC Books has announced a Canada Reads 2018 longlist of 15 books that speak to the theme: One Book to Open Your Eyes. From intimate memoirs to dystopian fiction, the longlisted titles challenge readers to look differently at themselves, their neighbours and the world around them.
CBC Laugh Out Loud’s Ali Hassan returns for his second year as host of Canada Reads, moderating a debate between five high-profile Canadian panellists, whose names will be announced January 30, 2018.
“I’m honoured that CBC invited me to return to the Canada Reads host chair,” said Hassan. “In this day and age, as parts of the world seem hell-bent on reducing and even removing support for literacy and learning, Canada Reads continues to be a terrific stage from which to showcase some of Canada’s strongest literary talents and has become one of the most important projects in my career.”
The Canada Reads 2018 longlisted books are:
- Saints & Misfits by S.K. Ali (Simon & Schuster)
- The Boat People by Sharon Bala (McClelland & Stewart)
- Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, translated by Rhonda Mullins (Coach House Books)
- Brother by David Chariandy (McClelland & Stewart)
- Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote (Arsenal Pulp Press)
- Precious Cargo by Craig Davidson (Knopf Canada)
- The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (Dancing Cat Books)
- American War by Omar El Akkad (McClelland & Stewart)
- Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez (Arsenal Pulp Press)
- The Measure of a Man by JJ Lee (McClelland & Stewart)
- Out Standing in the Field by Sandra Perron (Cormorant Books)
- The Clothesline Swing by Ahmad Danny Ramadan (Nightwood Editions)
- Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto (HarperCollins)
- Dance, Gladys, Dance by Cassie Stocks (NeWest Press)
- Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga (House of Anansi Press)
The Canada Reads 2018 panel and the final five books will be announced on January 30, 2018. Each year, the shortlisted Canada Reads books see a significant rise in sales, and the winning book stays on bestseller lists for months. For the past three years, all five shortlisted titles appeared on Canadian bestseller lists in the weeks leading up to the debates.
Notable past winners include Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis, which was defended by spoken word artist and emcee Humble The Poet in 2017; The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis, which began as a self-published book and won Canada Reads in 2011; The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, the 2009 winner, which was broadcast as a mini-series on CBC-TV in early 2015; and 2007’s winner Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill, which became an international bestseller.
CBC Books is proud to announce Rakuten Kobo as the exclusive reading sponsor of Canada Reads 2018. Created in Canada in 2009 to give book lovers the option of reading digitally, Kobo enables readers to enjoy their favourite books whenever they wish and wherever they go.
The Canada Reads debates will take place in front of live audiences over four days from March 26-29, 2018, and will be broadcast on CBC Radio One, CBC and online at CBCbooks.ca. Each day of the competition, one book will be eliminated by the panellists, until a winner is voted the must-read book for Canadians in 2018.
