Becky Toyne's picks for best holiday book gifts in 2023

Books make great Christmas gifts. They're compact. You can read them pretty much anywhere. They're easy to wrap. AND, books are usually good for you.

So if you're struggling with your Christmas shopping list, take a breath. Book columnist Becky Toyne shared a list of her book recommendations in her latest conversation with Day 6 host Brent Bambury.

Toyne has six books on her list this year, including two adult fiction, two non-fiction, one for middle readers, and one for younger readers. So there's a broad range to choose from, and she loved them all.

The Future by Naomi Alderman

This is the much-anticipated follow-up novel to Alderman's hit 2019 novel, The Power. The Future starts with a group of tech giants receiving advanced notice of the coming apocalypse and they head off to their bunkers two days ahead of the rest of the population. 

"Then it rewinds a bit and we find out a bit more about them and a bit more in the lead up to this and a few of the characters involved. And of course, everything is not quite as it seems," explained Toyne.

The novel explores the ideas of big tech, A.I., and what happens to all of the everyday data we share with big companies. 

"There was a lot of stuff in here that made me want to talk about it," said Toyne. "And I felt like this is a novel I would recommend to people who liked Station Eleven, who liked The Circle by Dave Eggers, or who liked Naomi Alderman's previous novel, The Power." 

The Future by Catherine Leroux

This dystopian novel by Québecois Catherine Leroux is set in Fort Detroit. It's a world where Detroit never joined the United States and is, instead, a francophone Canadian city. 

Fort Detroit is a city in ruins. There is violence, poverty and hardship. But there is also a sense of community, where people come together to plant gardens and grow vegetables together, and where they take care of one another.

The main character is a woman named Gloria who returns to Fort Detroit after her estranged daughter is murdered, and she returns with the plan to raise her teenage granddaughters.

"Instead of At the End of the world, it's every man for themselves, at the end of the world everyone comes together as [a]community," explained Toyne. "So I just really enjoyed that kind of mix of the dark undertones and the brightness and the hopefulness."

The Future is on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024.

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant

Blood in the Machine is a work of non-fiction that starts with the history of the Luddites and their uprising in England 200 years ago.

"Luddite is a word that is very commonly known and also very commonly misused. It sort of is thrown around as a derogatory [term] like a bit of an insult for someone who doesn't like technology," said Toyne.

But as author Brian Merchant explains, the Luddites were 19th century textile workers who understood that incoming technology would threaten their way of life and diminish the skills they'd worked for years to achieve. 

Merchant then connects the history of the Luddites to current tech revolution.

"I thought this book was fascinating. I wish I could have read it 20 years ago," noted Toyne. "I would give it to someone who likes history, who would like a business book, who's interested in tech."

Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones by Elizabeth Winder

"This is a super fun book, and it pretty much does exactly what it says on the label," said Toyne.

Parachute Women tells the story of the wives and girlfriends of the Rolling Stones in their earlier years. These are the women who helped shape the band by introducing them to poetry, drugs and to influential people they might never have met. 

Toyne notes that the book assumes a certain amount of knowledge about the band and the women in their lives, and so doesn't recommend it for someone unfamiliar with the Rolling Stones.

Stuntboy by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Raúl the Third 

Stuntboy, In the Meantime was released in 2021, and the second book in the series, Stuntboy, In-Between Time was released in August 2023. 

The series follows the life of Portico Reeves, who is also secretly Stuntboy.

Portico lives in an apartment building, which he views as a castle with many bedrooms and many bathrooms, just like a castle. 

The book is a novel for middle readers, and Toyne notes that it's beautifully illustrated.

"And if like me, you are a little frustrated sometimes with the offerings for middle grade reader boys that kind of valorise just being stupid and dumb and not caring about things … I found that this was a really, really positive alternative to that," said Toyne, who says the books is very much about friendship, fun and imagination.

Ploof by Ben Clanton and Andy Chou Musser

"Just saying Ploof, don't you already feel happier? Isn't it lovely?"

Toyne explains that Ploof is a little cloud who's shy and needs a little help from his readers.

The picture book is interactive for young readers, so they help to tell the story.

"So if he's feeling shy, you encourage him to come out or you play hide and seek with him and you close your eyes and you count to ten. And when you turn the page, you just have a page filled with tiny sheep and Ploof, the cloud, has become a little tiny cloud and he's hidden in the sheep," explained Toyne.

Toyne describes the book as fun, charming and "gorgeous," and that she'd read it to children as young as two years of age.

Written and produced by Laurie Allan