Much to my surprise, I was able to read the whole Giller Prize longlist in the short four weeks between its announcement and the announcement of the longlist. In today’s deep-dive I’ll provide some further thoughts on the list. But first, the roundup.
Roundup
Music
If there’s one thing we can say about Taylor Swift it’s that she’ll always keep us on our toes. While there had been a lot of Swiftian smoke in the air lately, I don’t think anyone thought she’d be releasing a deluxe version of her polarizing 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl, featuring four new tracks. That release understandably took up a lot of air last week. While there has been a lot of negativity online about the new songs, they are not bad. They’re not life-changing, and I can point to specific things in each song that could have used a bit more work, as far as bonus tracks go, they’re pretty good. (Even “Cleveland!”, which has been getting dunked on online, is just a fun silly song and not meant to be more than that. People really need to take a breath and step away from their phone keyboards.) The problem right now, I think, is twofold: First, she’s making fun music that is good, but not her best, and she’s taught us to expect the best. And second, she’s simply aging out of the demographic whose language and lifestyle drive pop culture.
But lest Ms. Swift take up all the air in the room, last week also saw solid new releases from Max McNown, Tinashe, Nessa Barrett, Julia Jacklin, Blondshell, and Leon Bridges. In other words, it was a big week for good but lesser known artists. This week was comparatively quiet, with the biggest new release probably being Victoria Monet’s Frequency of Love. Miranda Lambert also came out with a new album, Crisco, which for me suffers the fate of a lot of country music right now: songs playing so hard into rural identity politics that they feel performative and almost like a parody of itself. (For example, this album features songs called “Snakeskin Boots,” “Crisco,” “Cowgirl Curtsy,” and “Whiskey Business,” which make it hard to get to some of the good content later on.) I also enjoyed Wishy’s new release, Nature’s Pill.
Albums
- Leave On a Light (Max McNown)
- MayGems (Julia Jacklin)
- Violins (Blondshell)
- Frequency of Love (Victoria Monet)
- Nature’s Pill (Wishy)
Songs
- “Patient Zero” (Taylor Swift)
- “Babylon” (Taylor Swift)
- “Isn’t That Love?” (Max McNown)
- “82 Chevy” (Dasha)
- “Draw You Out” (Noah Kahan)
- “You Mean the World to Me” (Victoria Monet)
- “All the Rage” (Wishy)
Reading
- Chloe Dang Would Rather Be Dead (Mai Nguyen, 2026 🇨🇦)
- This Inevitable Ruin (Matt Dinniman, 2025)
- The Comfort of Strangers (Ian McEwan, 1981)
- Eliza Sunshine (Michelle Good, 2026 🇨🇦)
- Your Breath in Charcoal (Nicholas Herring, 2026 🇨🇦)
- The Small Ones (Nazanine Hozar, 2026 🇨🇦)
- Daphnis and Chloe (Colin McAdam, 2026 🇨🇦)
- Dodge City (Patrick DeWitt, 2026 🇨🇦-born)
- Good People (Patmeena Sabit, 2026 🇨🇦-resident)
- Python’s Kiss (Louise Erdrich, 2026)
Focus on: Giller Prize Longlist Rankings
Reading the full Giller Prize longlist before the shortlist announcement is always a challenge, since it tends to be one of the longer lists and they leave less than a month between the two announcements. But I was able to make it work this year, and had a good time, as I always do with this Prize.
Whereas I immediately noticed strong themes within the Booker longlist this year, the Giller list seemed more like a representative sampler of Canadian (broadly defined) literature from the year.
In the lead up to the shortlist announcement on Monday, October 5, here are some thoughts on what five books I’d love to see advance. As I did my list I realized that the books I’d most like to see on the list are also the five I think have the best chance, which is a rarity!
My Personal Shortlist (Ranked)
1. Dodge City, by Patrick DeWitt:
- Elevator pitch: A 1960s draft-dodger undertakes a road trip to make peace with his decision and say goodbyes to his scattered family.
- Why it made my shortlist: Propulsive storytelling, with nuanced and universal themes.
2. At Sea in a Sieve, by Cordelia Strube
- Elevator pitch: Questions about the nature of true justice seep from an Ontario Superior Court judge’s professional life into her personal life.
- Why it made my shortlist: Great writing, strong character work, and big themes. It’s exactly the kind of book literary prizes reward.
3. Good People, by Patmeena Sabit:
- Elevator pitch: A family of successful Afghan refugees comes under intense scrutiny following the death of their teenage daughter.
- Why it made my shortlist: This is simply exquisitely plotted and paced and deals with complex and topical issues in a nuanced way.
4. Eliza Sunshine, by Michelle Good:
- Elevator pitch: A multigenerational saga about the resilient women of one Cree family.
- Why it made my shortlist: It’s well-written, deals with important and ugly facets of Canadian history, and has compelling characters.
5. The Uravelling of Ou, by Hollay Ghadery:
- Elevator Pitch: An Iranian woman exiled to Canada as a teen develops an unhealthy dependence on a sock puppet.
- Why it made my shortlist: This is a psychologically rich immigrant story with a unique POV character.
The Rest of the Longlist (Ranked)
6. The Small Ones, by Nazanine Hozar: The story of child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War. This was really beautiful despite dealing with very ugly themes. It just barely missed my top 5.
7. The Novice of Holloway Hall, by Wayne Johnston. A powerful family’s iron grip on their small Newfoundland town is challenged when their sister returns from exile. I loved this, but I think it may just be a bit too quirky to make the shortlist in such a strong year.
8. Riverwork, by Jennifer Robertson: A woman living in Paris ponders lost history and what gets left behind as she cleans her bosses’ offices. This features exquisite prose, literary references galore, and deep philosophical ideas, but the narrative framing felt like an afterthought.
9. Your Breath in Charcoal, by Nicholas Herring: A small-town man contemplates life while having adventures in the big city. This is East Coast storytelling at its most entertaining, but I wanted the story itself to be a bit stronger.
10. Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, by Mai Nguyen: A darkly humorous story of a woman’s journey with grief following the loss of her infant during childbirth. This is a powerful novel that threads a difficult needle in its light tone and heavy subject matter, but for me it didn’t quite measure up to some of the others.
11. Daphnis and Chloe, by Colin McAdam: The ancient romance of fated mates whose love is sorely tested is here retold in the underworld of organized crime. This is well done but the remote narrative style alienated me a bit from the characters.
12. The Golden Boy, by Patricia Finn: A retired tv executive’s small town past comes back to haunt him. Uneven pacing and plotting spoiled some brilliant character and relationship development.
13. Wild People Quiet, by Tara Gereaux: A Métis woman passing for White faces her reckoning when her brother shows up in her Saskatchewan town. This tells an important and very real story about Canadian history, but for me was let down by the sentence-level writing.
14. The Winter Witch, by Jennifer Chevalier: Naive sisters get caught up in a witch hunt after coming to Ville Marie as filles-du-roi. This is high-quality, popular historical fiction that puts an interesting spin on a common trope, but its accessibility also made it feel less special.
