Organizers of York University’s acclaimed Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series – humanities Professor Gail Vanstone and Department of English contract faculty member Dana Patrascu-Kingsley – offer their 2024 list of best books to read over the holiday break and beyond.
Vanstone and Patrascu-Kingsley organize the annual series that brings new and established Canadian authors to the York community (either in person or via Zoom) to deliver readings from their books. Canadian Writers in Person is a for-credit course offered in the Culture & Expression program in the Department of Humanities in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, but the associated lecture series is free and open to members of the York community and the public who are not enrolled in the course. The series continues Jan. 14, 2025 with a reading from Kevin Chong’s latest novel, The Double Life of Benson Yu.
“This year,” Vanstone said, “our list highlights the diversity of voices that we strive to include on our reading lists for HUMA 1953 every year. This is recent Canadian literature at its best."
Patrascu-Kingsley adds, "It will entertain you. It will transport you to other countries and bring you right back with a changed perspective. It will make you cry and recognize our shared humanity. It will make you laugh and recognize our shared follies. It will deepen your understanding of the world and the people in it.”
The 2024 list of best books to read
- Norma Dunning Tainna: The Unseen Ones
- Saeed Teebi Her First Palestinian
- Suzette Mayr The Sleeping Car Porter
- Billy-Ray Belcourt A Minor Chorus
- Billy-Ray Belcourt Coexistence
- Sylvia Hamilton Tender
- Anuja Varghese Chrysalis
- Hannah Green Xanax Cowboy
- Jamaluddin Aram Nothing Good Happens in Wasirabad on Wednesday
- Marilyn Dumont South Side of a Kinless River
- Pasha Malla All You Can Kill
- M. G. Vassanji Nowhere Exactly
- Ava Homa Daughters of Smoke and Fire
- Zalika Reid-Benta River Mumma
- Kevin Chong The Double Life of Benson Yu
- David Bezmozgis Immigrant City
- Pik-Shuen Fung Ghost Forest
- Cherie Dimaline The Marrow Thieves
- Souvankham Thammavongsa How to Pronounce Knife
- Phoebe Wang Admission Requirements
Vanstone and Patrascu-Kingsley also offer a special recommendation to read M.G. Vassanji’s "brilliantly evocative memoir" Nowhere, Exactly. One of Canada’s most cherished fiction writers who began as a specialist in nuclear physics, Vassanji invokes landscapes of culture, memory, identity and history, shedding fresh light on his award-winning and treasured body of fiction.
For more information about the lecture series, visit the event web page or email Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca.