On The Outside Looking Indian by Rupinder Gill

Just after her 30th birthday, Rupinder Gill is struck with the realization that she had missed a lot during her childhood due to her strict Indian upbringing. From learning how to swim to owning a pet, she hadn’t got the childhood she thought she should have had. So, she resolves to have a second childhood and do all the things that she hadn’t done.

A charming memoir that sheds humour and light on the This Hour Has 22 Minutes writer’s life as an immigrant child in Ontario.

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

The peccadilloes of Parliament Hill’s political animals animate Terry Fallis’s comic first novel. Engineering professor Angus McLintock agrees to run in an election he’s sure to lose, but then the unthinkable happens – and federal politics will never be the same. In this pointed and irreverent political satire, the best laid plans are giddily undone, and perhaps for the better, as idealism and pragmatism clash in the corridors of power.

The Best Laid Plans won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and Canada Reads 2011. It was defended by Ali Velshi.

How To Be A Canadian: Even If You Already Are One by Will Ferguson

How To Be A Canadian is your quick and dirty manual on how to pass as a regular old Canadian. Full of ‘facts’ (by a very loose definition) and even more full of jokes, the Ferguson brothers have compiled everything you need to know about the great white North. With such chapters as “How To Find Canada On a Map” and “How To Waste Time Like a Canadian”, this tongue-in-cheek book is a light and funny read for any Canadian.

Motorcycles & Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor

35-year-old Maggie struggling to balance the responsibilities of being chief of Otter Lake reserve and a mother of a teenager, Virgil. In the midst of these struggles, a mysterious man named John rolls into town on a vintage Indian Chief motorcycle. He sweeps Maggie off of her feet, but Virgil remains suspicious. In a series of antics, Virgil and his uncle set out to find the truth about “John”.

A light-hearted and funny novel, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass blends Nanabush trickster mythology with contemporary indigenous issues.

Listen To The Squawking Chicken by Elaine Lui

Elaine Lui – known to many as Lainey Lui, the celebrity gossip extraordinaire behind the site Lainey Gossip – has produced a laugh-out-loud, surprisingly sentimental, self-proclaimed “sort-of memoir” that is a loving ode to Lui’s loud, no-nonsense and always-right mother.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

Set against the backdrop of the 1850s California Gold Rush, the novel follows Eli and Charlie Sisters, two hard-bitten hired killers as they hunt down Hermann Warm, a prospector with a mysterious chemical formula for creating gold. A playful homage to the classic western, The Sisters Brothers is an offbeat, entrancing read full of dark humour.

The Sisters Brothers won the 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. It was also a finalist for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2011 Man Booker Prize.

Norman Bray In The Performance Of His Life by Trevor Cole

Norman Bray is a washed-up, has-been actor. In the past, he laughed responsibility in the face and now it’s catching up to him. He has to face his children, the bank, and himself–and he does so with what he thinks is “charm”.Norman Bray In the Performance of His Life is a hilarious foray through this pig-headed asinine character’s life.

Half Empty by David Rakoff

Half Empty makes the case for the pessimistic perspective. Through a series of essays journalist and humorist David Rakoff takes the reader through the world from his vantage point. He makes sometimes insightful, often sarcastic observations of things that normally fly over our heads. But in his shrewd turns of phrases, they become fodder for social commentary and humour. And nothing is off-limits–his topics range from the Hollywood Walk of Fame to a New York pornography convention– everything is better when you assume the worst.

Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood

In the very first paragraph of Margaret Atwood’s third novel, narrator Joan Foster announces that she has faked her own death and started life over in Italy. She looks back over the dissatisfactions of her past, including her secret career as the writer of Gothic romances and her struggles with her weight. Atwood explores gender stereotypes and assumptions about literary worth in this smart, slyly funny romp.

Come Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant

A cross-country plane trip to the bedside of a father in a coma in Newfoundland; a pet tortoise, Winnifred, left at the mercy of an unreliable friend in Oregon. Life holds its challenges for Audrey (a.k.a. Oddly) Flowers, the narrator of Jessica Grant’s charming first novel. Oddly is an unforgettable character, and Grant tells her story with quirky, endearing wit.

Come, Thou Tortoise won the 2009 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.