We’ve picked six of our favourite audiobooks that you can listen to on late summer road trips, commutes, and perhaps while doing a puzzle at home… or maybe that’s just me. Some of these titles are available for free at your local library, and the others are available for purchase through the publisher.
From the latest in the coveted #1 BC bestselling murder mystery series to a cathartic poetry book pushing back on sexism, from novels that read like unraveling a riddle to a memoir from a mother in the wilderness—you can sample the breadth of BC stories available on audio.
Happy listening.
Thrillers
The Weight of Snow by Christian Guay-Poliquin, translated by David Homel (Talonbooks)
A badly injured man. A nationwide power failure. A village buried in snow. A desperate struggle for survival. These are the ingredients of The Weight of Snow, Christian Guay-Poliquin’s riveting new novel.
The Weight of Snow has won numerous awards, including the Prix littéraire France-Québec, the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-Language Fiction, the Prix Ringuet, and the Prix littéraire des collégiens.
Out now
A False and Fatal Claim by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)
Lane Winslow is known in her idyllic British Columbia laketown of King’s Cove for a bad habit of finding dead bodies. This time, all she’s found is a suspiciously well-made hat abandoned in the brush, but she’s certain there’s a mystery afoot.
Out now
Memoirs
Wilderness Mother (30th Anniversary Edition): A Memoir Of 13 Years Off The Grid by Deanna Barnhardt Kawatski (Ronsdale Press)
Revised and updated 30th anniversary edition of the wilderness classic of raising a young family in the remote wilds of northern Canada.
Out now
Brotherhood is a Constant Possibility: Asian Masculinity in a World Made for Whitenes by Ryan Cho, foreword by Rahim Thawer (Thornapple Press)
A deeply personal, provocative portrait of how race, culture and sexuality intersect to reshape what it means to be an Asian man in North America today.
Coming September
Resistance
The Art of Looking Back: A Painter, an Obsession, and Reclaiming the Gaze by Theresa Kishkan (Thornapple Press)
A former artist’s model and muse reclaims her image and voice, dismantling the male gaze that once framed her.
Out now
Unfuckable Lardass by Catriona Strang (Talonbooks)
Unfuckable Lardass reverts the patriarchy’s gaze. It began as an attempt to refract and undercut an outrageous insult allegedly lobbed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel–an egregious demonstration of the framing of women in reductive and sexualized terms ignoring their existence as subjects of their own complex histories. This audiobook is read powerfully by the author.
Out now