ReadingRate · Best Books · 2026

The best books from Canada

Ranked by literary regard, Canadian writing is led by Alice Munro's short-story collections, Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Munro appears more often in the top tier than any other Canadian writer, and this list ranks the top 100 with difficulty scores for each.

A computed ranking from literary-regard scores. Canada's list makes a case that its strongest form is the short story rather than the novel — Munro's collections occupy much of the upper ranking, and she is the country's Nobel laureate. Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, which ReadingRate's own literary atlas is built on, sits near the top.

1–10

  1. Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro (1990, difficulty 7.2/10)
  2. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye (1957, difficulty 6.7/10)
  3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (1986, difficulty 8.1/10)
  4. Writing Lives by Leon Edel (1984, difficulty 4.9/10)
  5. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (1992, difficulty 6.3/10)
  6. Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro (1968, difficulty 5.2/10)
  7. Runaway by Alice Munro (2004, difficulty 4.5/10)
  8. The Case of Peter Rabbit: Changing Conditions of Literature for Children by Sheila Egoff (1996, difficulty 6.7/10)
  9. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro (1998, difficulty 4.6/10)
  10. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies (1970, difficulty 7.7/10)

11–20

  1. The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro (1980, difficulty 5.4/10)
  2. The Licensing Act of 1737 and the Staging of the Eighteenth-Century Essay by Margaret Anne Doody (1996, difficulty 6.5/10)
  3. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by Charles Taylor (1989, difficulty 7.0/10)
  4. At the Will of the Body by Arthur W. Frank (1991, difficulty 5.0/10)
  5. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2002, difficulty 5.8/10)
  6. Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984, difficulty 5.6/10)
  7. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood (1972, difficulty 7.6/10)
  8. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (1996, difficulty 6.7/10)
  9. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (2019, difficulty 7.5/10)
  10. Dear Life by Alice Munro (2012, difficulty 4.0/10)

21–30

  1. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction by Linda Hutcheon (1988, difficulty 5.4/10)
  2. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (1908, difficulty 3.3/10)
  3. The Pound Era by Hugh Kenner (1971, difficulty 7.9/10)
  4. Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje (2000, difficulty 6.4/10)
  5. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (1959, difficulty 3.3/10)
  6. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje (1987, difficulty 6.3/10)
  7. Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (2005, difficulty 6.1/10)
  8. Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro (1971, difficulty 5.2/10)
  9. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2000, difficulty 7.4/10)
  10. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (2003, difficulty 7.9/10)

31–40

  1. Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (1964, difficulty 5.9/10)
  2. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (1993, difficulty 6.9/10)
  3. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (2005, difficulty 4.2/10)
  4. Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje (1976, difficulty 6.9/10)
  5. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood (1989, difficulty 7.0/10)
  6. World of Wonders by Robertson Davies (1975, difficulty 4.5/10)
  7. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1993, difficulty 7.6/10)
  8. Unless by Carol Shields (2002, difficulty 6.0/10)
  9. How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti (2012, difficulty 3.9/10)
  10. What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies (1986, difficulty 6.1/10)

41–50

  1. The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur W. Frank (1995, difficulty 5.1/10)
  2. The Adversary by Michael Crummey (2025, difficulty 5.6/10)
  3. Larry's Party by Carol Shields (1998, difficulty 5.3/10)
  4. The Manticore by Robertson Davies (1972, difficulty 6.2/10)
  5. Room by Emma Donoghue (2010, difficulty 4.9/10)
  6. The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan (1962, difficulty 3.2/10)
  7. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (2018, difficulty 6.2/10)
  8. St. Urbain's Horseman by Mordecai Richler (1971, difficulty 5.7/10)
  9. Annabel by Kathleen Winter (2011, difficulty 4.5/10)
  10. The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies (1981, difficulty 4.3/10)

51–60

  1. De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage (2008, difficulty 5.1/10)
  2. No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod (2001, difficulty 5.4/10)
  3. Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler (1990, difficulty 6.1/10)
  4. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (2018, difficulty 5.7/10)
  5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014, difficulty 5.7/10)
  6. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (2011, difficulty 5.3/10)
  7. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022, difficulty 5.3/10)
  8. Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill (2008, difficulty 5.1/10)
  9. Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved versus Unresolved Antinomy by Amaryll Chanady (1985, difficulty 6.0/10)
  10. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff (1993, difficulty 5.7/10)

61–70

  1. News of the World by Paulette Jiles (2016, difficulty 5.0/10)
  2. Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (2023, difficulty 6.4/10)
  3. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (1997, difficulty 5.9/10)
  4. Motherhood by Sheila Heti (2018, difficulty 6.7/10)
  5. This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki (2014, difficulty 2.4/10)
  6. Far to Go by Alison Pick (2011, difficulty 5.1/10)
  7. The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker (2003, difficulty 5.5/10)
  8. Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje (1982, difficulty 3.2/10)
  9. Consolation by Michael Redhill (2007, difficulty 4.9/10)
  10. Held by Anne Michaels (2024, difficulty 5.2/10)

71–80

  1. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood (2011, difficulty 5.0/10)
  2. Blindsight by Peter Watts (2006, difficulty 5.5/10)
  3. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (2016, difficulty 5.5/10)
  4. Unexploded by Alison MacLeod (2013, difficulty 5.7/10)
  5. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson (1999, difficulty 6.0/10)
  6. The Troop by Nick Cutter (2014, difficulty 3.4/10)
  7. Pure Colour by Sheila Heti (2022, difficulty 6.9/10)
  8. Jade City by Fonda Lee (2017, difficulty 5.5/10)
  9. No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999, difficulty 2.8/10)
  10. Ulysses by Hugh Kenner (1980, difficulty 8.5/10)

81–90

  1. Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson (1986, difficulty 6.8/10)
  2. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature by Margaret Atwood (1972, difficulty 3.0/10)
  3. Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin (2018, difficulty 1.9/10)
  4. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007, difficulty 3.0/10)
  5. The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination by Northrop Frye (1971, difficulty 4.1/10)
  6. The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels (2008, difficulty 6.3/10)
  7. The Push by Ashley Audrain (2021, difficulty 4.6/10)
  8. Airborn by Kenneth Oppel (2004, difficulty 1.9/10)
  9. The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart (2001, difficulty 7.0/10)
  10. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein (2014, difficulty 2.8/10)

91–100

  1. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020, difficulty 5.6/10)
  2. Still Life by Louise Penny (2005, difficulty 3.1/10)
  3. I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid (2016, difficulty 6.0/10)
  4. Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature by Margaret Atwood (1995, difficulty 2.6/10)
  5. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (2012, difficulty 5.0/10)
  6. Happy City by Charles Montgomery (2013, difficulty 1.8/10)
  7. Jade War by Fonda Lee (2019, difficulty 5.2/10)
  8. The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay (1995, difficulty 5.7/10)
  9. The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison (2013, difficulty 3.1/10)
  10. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (1990, difficulty 7.1/10)

Questions people actually ask

What are the best Canadian books?
By literary regard: Alice Munro's story collections, Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, The Handmaid's Tale, and The English Patient lead. ReadingRate ranks the top 100 with difficulty data for each.
Where should I start with Alice Munro?
Dance of the Happy Shades or Runaway — both hold high regard at moderate difficulty scores, lower than Friend of My Youth, which ranks highest but reads harder.
What is Anatomy of Criticism?
Northrop Frye's 1957 study of literary structure — modes, symbols, myths, and genres. It is the framework behind ReadingRate's literary atlas, and one of the highest-regarded works of criticism written anywhere.