2011 - 2012
The Bone Cage
Author: Angie Abdou

Digger, an 85 kilo wrestler, and Sadie, a 26-year-old speed swimmer, stand on the verge of realizing every athlete's dream—winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Both athletes are nearing the end of their athletic careers, and are forced to confront the question: what happens to athletes when their bodies are too old and injured to compete? The blossoming relationship between Digger and Sadie is tested in the all-important months leading up to the Olympics, as intense training schedules, divided loyalties, and unpredicted obstacles take their draining toll. The Olympics, as both of them are painfully aware, will be the realization or the end of a life's dream.

Available at the MacEwan Bookstores

2010 - 2011
The Golden Mean
Author: Annabel Lyon

On the orders of his boyhood friend, now King Philip of Macedon, Aristotle postpones his dreams of succeeding Plato as leader of the Academy in Athens and reluctantly arrives in the Macedonian capital of Pella to tutor the king’s adolescent sons. An early illness has left one son with the intellect of a child; the other is destined for greatness but struggles between a keen mind that craves instruction and the pressures of a society that demands his prowess as a soldier.

2009 - 2010
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Author: Steven Galloway

This brilliant novel with universal resonance tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst.

2008 - 2009
Lullabies for Little Criminals
Author: Heather O'Neill

LULLABIES FOR LITTLE CRIMINALS is the heartbreaking and wholly original debut novel by This American Life contributor Heather O'Neill, about a young girl fighting to preserve her bruised innocence on the feral streets of a big city. Baby, all of thirteen years old, is lost in the gangly, coltish moment between childhood and the strange pulls and temptations of the adult world.

2007 - 2008
Sweetness in the Belly
Author: Camilla Gibb

Lilly, the main character of Camilla Gibb's stunning novel, has anything but a stable childhood. The daughter of English/Irish hippies, she was born in Yugoslavia, breast-fed in the Ukraine, weaned in Corsica, freed from nappies in Sicily and walking by the time [they] got to the Algarve. The family's nomadic adventure ends in Tangier when Lilly's parents are killed in a drug deal gone awry. Orphaned at eight, Lilly is left in the care of a Sufi sheikh, who shows her the way of Islam.

2006 - 2007
Oryx and Crake
Author: Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it.

This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of Oryx and Crake, nothing will ever look the same again.

2005 - 2006
Black Bird
Author: Michel Basilieres

In this wholly original novel alive with misfortune and magic, Michel Basilières uncovers a Montreal not seen in any other English-Canadian work: a forgotten blue-collar neighbourhood in between the two solitudes. Gothic, outrageous, yet tender and wise, Black Bird is as liberating as the dreams of its wayward characters, and as gripping as the insurgencies that split its heart.

2004 - 2005
Deafening
Author: Frances Itani

In Deafening, Canadian writer Frances Itani's American debut novel, she tells two parallel stories: a man's story of war and a woman's story of waiting for him and of what it is to be deaf. Grania O'Neill is left with no hearing after having scarlet fever when she is five. She is taught at home until she is nine and then sent to the Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, where lifelong friendships are forged, her career as a nurse is chosen, and she meets Jim Lloyd, a hearing man, with whom she falls in love.

2003 - 2004
Life of Pi
Author: Yann Martel

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.

2002 - 2003
Monkey Beach
Author: Eden Robinson

Set on the rugged northwestern coast of British Columbia, Monkey Beach is the coming-of-age story of a young Haisla girl who, is searching for her lost brother, learns about herself, her family, and her complex cultural world. The novel was nominated for both the giller prize and the Governor General's Award in 2000.

2001 - 2002
Mercy Among the Children
Author: David Adams Richards

Winner of the 2000 Giller Prize, Mercy Among the Children is strongly rooted in the Miramichi Valley of late 20th century New Brunswick, yet in the conflict of the characters, we see Richards' fiercely moral vision at work.

2000 - 2001
Chorus of Mushrooms
Author: Hiromi Goto

Hiromi Goto's award-winning novel traces the stories of three generations of Japanese Canadian women living on a mushroom farm in Southern Alberta.

1999 - 2000
The Englishman's Boy
Author: Guy Vanderhaeghe

Two Narrative streams merge in this novel the Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873 and the phenomenon of the early Hollywood in the 1920s. Thoroughly researched, the novel is rich with historical texture and beautifully crafted prose.

1998 - 1999
Icefields
Author: Thomas Wharton

In 1898, a British doctor visiting the Rocky Mountains near Jasper falls into a crevasse. The story that Wharton lyrically unfolds is mysterious and intriguing.

1997 - 1998
Medicine River
Author: Thomas King

The story of one man's discovery of family and community, Thomas King's debut novel is by turns funny and poignant.