10 Canadian books turning 25 in 2025
Books published in 2000 are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year!
Check out this list of 10 Canadian titles celebrating this milestone and see if your favourite classic is included — or discover a new book to add to your reading list!
A Student of Weather by Elizabeth Hay
First published: May 2000
A Student of Weather is about two sisters whose rivalry shapes the events of their lives for over 30 years. Lucinda is described as beautiful and fastidious, while Norma Joyce is tricky and tenacious. The two sisters' lives are forever changed when a young man appears during the 1930s Prairie Dust Bowl.
Hay is a former radio broadcaster and Giller Prize-winning author of the 2007 novel Late Nights on Air. Her memoir All Things Consoled won the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize. She currently lives in Ottawa.
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
First published: March 2000
In Anil's Ghost, Anil Tissera, a Sri Lankan woman educated in England and the U.S., returns to her homeland after receiving an assignment from a human rights organization to investigate suspected mass political murders. Working alongside an archeologist, she discovers a skeleton that sets her on a gripping journey to uncover its identity.
Michael Ondaatje is a Canadian literary icon. His novels and poetry have earned international acclaim, and he was the first Canadian ever to win the Man Booker Prize — in 1992, for the wartime story The English Patient. Born in Sri Lanka and educated in England, Ondaatje moved to Canada when he was 18 to attend university.
Ondaatje began his writing career in 1967 as a poet, winning two Governor General's Awards for poetry before turning to fiction. In 1982, Ondaatje won the CBC Short Story Prize. He's also won the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award and France's prestigious Prix Medicis for Anil's Ghost.
Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt
First published: September 2000
In Forty Words for Sorrow, Detective John Cardinal is the only one willing to confront the chilling reality that the remote northern town of Algonquin Bay may have the most vicious of serial killers on the loose. He is determined in his quest to figure out why teenagers are going missing and being murdered, even if it comes at a personal cost.
Giles Blunt, originally from North Bay, Ont., spent two decades in New York City as both a novelist and a scriptwriter for popular TV shows such as Law and Order, Street Legal and Night Heat, before settling in Toronto. He is best known as the master mystery novelist behind the popular John Cardinal series which has been adapted to a television series on CTV. He has won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel twice and received the British Crime Writers' Macallan Silver Dagger.
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
First published: October 2000
In Eden Robinson's debut novel, Monkey Beach, set in Kitimat, B.C. Lisa, the older sister, grapples with the fear and consequences of her younger brother's disappearance at sea. As she anxiously awaits news of him, Lisa is not only forced to grow up quickly, but also draws on a "gift" that enables her to see and communicate with spirits and seek their help.
B.C. writer Eden Robinson has published novels, poems and short stories. Robinson's work, infused with dark humour, gothic influences and traditional Haisla and Heiltsuk stories, portrays the everyday lives of Indigenous people in coastal B.C. Monkey Beach was nominated for the 2000 Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award and won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
Son of a Trickster, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2017 and was defended by Kaniehtiio Horn on Canada Reads 2020. In 2024, she was the Arts Laureate for the Indspire Awards.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
First published: September 2000
In Margaret Atwood's 10th novel, The Blind Assassin, family drama spans the decades between the First World War and the present and uses several literary techniques — including an unreliable narrator, multiple storylines and a novel-within-a-novel — to tell a disturbing tale of love, greed and revenge.
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer who has published fiction, nonfiction, poetry and comics. She began her writing career with poetry, publishing The Circle Game and winning the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry in the late 1960s. She's since published more than a dozen poetry collections, including The Journals of Susanna Moodie in 1970, Power Politics in 1971 and Dearly in 2020.
She has won several awards for her work including the Governor General's Literary Award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Man Booker Prize. She was named a companion to the Order of Canada in 1981. In 2024, she was the recipient of the Writer in the World Prize for her impact on literature, art and culture.
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche, translated by Patricia Claxton
First published: Originally published in Quebec in 2000; translated to English in 2003
A Sunday at the Pool is a novel set during the devastating Rwandan genocide of April 1994, when the Hutu-led government carried out mass killings of the Tutsi people. Amidst the political turmoil, a Quebec documentary filmmaker discovers that he is unable to leave as he finds himself falling in love with the country and a Tutsi woman named Gentille.
Gil Courtemanche was a Quebec journalist and author. Born in 1943 and becoming a journalist in 1962, he was recognized for his analysis of international politics for a variety of media. A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali was translated into 23 languages and won the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Other books by Courtemanche include The World, the Lizard and Me and A Good Death. Courtemanche died in 2011.
Patricia Claxton is a Montreal-based translator and the two-time recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation.
Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards
First published: September 2000
Mercy Among the Children tells the story of a man who makes a pact with God to harm no man that comes at a great cost to his family. His son, disillusioned by his father's perceived passivity, chooses to live life in a way that is the complete opposite. Set in the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, the book chronicles the classic conflict between good and evil.
David Adams Richards is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, essayist, poet, senator and member of the Order of Canada. He has won several awards for his work including the Governor General's Literary Award, the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book. Mercy Among the Children was a Canada Reads 2009 finalist, when it was defended by Sarah Slean. The book won the Giller Prize in 2000 and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction the same year.
Burridge Unbound by Alan Cumyn
First published: April 2000
In Burridge Unbound, Canadian diplomat Bill Burridge struggles with the trauma he experienced during his time on the South Pacific island of Santa Irene. However, even though he is struggling to maintain control of his life, Burridge reluctantly agrees to serve on a Truth Commission to investigate past atrocities committed in Santa Irene.
Alan Cumyn is a Ottawa-based author of books for adults and children. Man of Bone won the Ottawa-Carleton Book Award and was a Trillium Book Award finalist. Burridge Unbound won the Ottawa Book Award and was a Giller Prize finalist. The Secret Life of Owen Skye was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Literature in 2002. He is also the author of Losing It and The Sojourn.
Men in the Off Hours by Anne Carson
First published: February 2000
Men in the Off Hours is a collection of poetry and prose by Anne Carson that reimagines iconic literary and historical figures, including Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf, in startling juxtapositions. The collection also includes Carson's own reflections on the recent death of her mother.
Anne Carson has won a MacArthur "genius" grant, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Pushcart Prize for Poetry and the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her work combines classical mythology with startling reflections on loss, monstrosity and loneliness — reinventing ancient wounds for a modern age. Her poetry collections include Autobiography of Red, Antigonick and Red Doc>. With her 2001 book, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, she became the first woman to receive England's T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Men in the Off Hours won Canada's inaugural Griffin Poetry Prize in 2001.
Alice, I Think by Susan Juby
First published: April 2000
In Alice, I Think, high school student Alice MacLeod has a breakdown and decides she needs to reevaluate her life. She makes a list of goals and sets out to get a job, a boyfriend and a good haircut. But getting these things isn't that easy.
Susan Juby is the award-winning, bestselling author from Vancouver Island whose book Mindful of Murder was nominated for the Leacock Medal for Humour. Her previous books include Getting the Girl, Another Kind of Cowboy, A Meditation on Murder and the Alice MacLeod series. Her novel Republic of Dirt won the 2016 Leacock Medal in 2016. She lives on the island with her husband and two dogs.
