Becoming a Matriarch & Moon of the Turning Leaves among Indigo's Best Books of the Year
The year-end list showcases fiction and nonfiction titles by Canadian and Indigenous authors
Canadian bookseller Indigo has unveiled its best books of the year list for 2023. Canadian novels Becoming a Matriarch, Moon of the Turning Leaves, Life in Two Worlds and The Defector made the top 10 list.
The list featured works of nonfiction and fiction, including Canadian and Indigenous titles.
The top spot was taken by Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful, followed by Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Both Napolitano and Yarros are American authors.
Becoming a Matriarch by Indigenous writer Helen Knott was ranked third on the top 10 list.
The memoir by Knott tells the story of her experience losing both her mother and grandmother in just over six months. The book explores themes of mourning, sobriety through loss and generational dreaming, and redefines what it means to truly be a matriarch.
Knott is a poet, social worker and writer of Dane Zaa, Nehiyaw, Métis and European descent from the Prophet River First Nation. She is also the author of the memoir In My Own Moccasins, which won the 2020 Saskatchewan Book Award for Indigenous Peoples' Publishing.
Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Turning Leaves took fourth place on Indigo's Best Books of the Year.
Moon of the Turning Leaves takes place a decade after the events of the post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow. In an epic journey to a forgotten homeland, Evan Whitesky and his fellow survivors are searching for a new home.
Evan leads the group – which include his daughter Nangohns and a great archer and hunter – to their ancestral home, a land "where the birch trees grow by the big water." They encounter other survivors along the way, not all of whom can be trusted.
Rice is an Anishinaabe author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation, and he currently lives in Sudbury, Ont. He is the author of Legacy and the short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge, which won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. Rice was previously the host of CBC Radio's Up North.
Moon of the Crusted Snow made the Canada Reads 2023 longlist.
Ninth on the top 10 list was Life in Two Worlds: A Coach's Reserve to the NHL and Back, written by Ted Nolan with Meg Masters.
Life in Two Worlds is a memoir about Ted Nolan's journey as an Indigenous NHL coach. He found great success as head coach of the Buffalo Sabres, and in 1997 he won the Jack Adams Award for best coach in the NHL. Yet the team failed to re-sign the award-winning coach, and he did not work in professional hockey again for nearly a decade.
Life in Two Worlds delves into those controversial years in Buffalo, where Nolan recounts how being shut out from the NHL left him angry, frustrated and so vulnerable he almost destroyed his own life. It also tells the tale of his recovery and eventual return to coaching – and how he was able to bring his two worlds together.
LISTEN | Ted Nolan on his new memoir, Life in Two Worlds:
Nolan is a former NHL hockey coach who grew up on the Garden River First Nation Reserve. He played three seasons in the NHL for the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins, and served as the head coach for the Buffalo Sabres from 1995 to 1997 and again from 2013 to 2015. He was also head coach for the New York Islanders from 2006 to 2008, and coached hockey at an international level at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games for Team Latvia.
Masters is Toronto-based writer and editor. She has worked with many Canadian authors, such as Samra Zafar and Andrea Constand.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield's The Defector was tenth on the list.
The Defector is the follow-up to Hadfield's debut novel, The Apollo Murders. The space thriller follows NASA flight controller and former U.S. test pilot Kaz Zemeckis as he engages in aerial combat. He takes to the sky to hunt down a high-level defector and uncover Soviet secrets.
Chris Hadfield was a military pilot and astronaut for 35 years, and he was the first Canadian to walk in space. He served as commander of the International Space Station and received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2002. Hadfield became a member of the Order of Canada in 2014.
Hadfield is also the author of the memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, the children's book The Darkest Dark, which was illustrated by the Fan Brothers, and the photo book You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes.
The complete top 10 list is:
- Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott
- Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice
- The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
- Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
- Happy Place by Emily Henry
- The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
- Life in Two Worlds by Ted Nolan
- The Defector by Chris Hadfield
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