Material reading
The year’s top books from local authors
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From new volumes by seasoned writers to new faces on the local literary scene, 2025 proved to be a banner year for books by Manitoba authors, many of which were bestsellers in the province and beyond.
Whether you’re looking for a last-minute holiday gift or the next pick for your book club, here are 10 notable books by locals from the past 12 months, listed in the order they came out this year.
For the Love of a Son
For the Love of a Son: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Hope
By Scott Oake with Michael Hingston
The legendary local sportscaster’s memoir chronicles son Bruce’s struggles with drugs and addiction until his death at age 25 in 2011, as well as the work Scott and his late wife Anne put in to creating the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre. The book was a national bestseller, and topped sales of all non-fiction titles at McNally Robinson Booksellers for 2025.
All the Little Monsters
All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live With Anxiety
By David A. Robertson
This was the first of three books published in 2025 by the Winnipeg Swampy Cree author (the other two were 52 Ways to Reconcile and The World’s End, the final book of the middle-grade Misewa Saga). In All the Little Monsters, Robertson details his struggles with anxiety, his physical ailments and the ways in which he manages to cope — and keep the monsters at bay.
Small Ceremonies
Small Ceremonies: A Novel
By Kyle Edwards
Anishinaabe author Kyle Edwards, who now lives in New York (and was a Free Press intern in 2014), won the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction for his debut novel, which chronicles the plight of two Indigenous teens in Winnipeg’s North End and their struggling hockey team over the course of a season.
Kyle Edwards wins Governor General’s Literary Award for debut
The World So Wide
The World So Wide
By Zilla Jones
After nabbing plenty of awards for her short fiction, the Winnipeg lawyer and author (and Free Press book reviewer) delivered her first full-length novel this spring. The work of historical fiction follows a Winnipeg opera singer with Grenadian roots who becomes entangled in the 1983 invasion of Grenada by the U.S. and a coalition of Caribbean nations.
Rock Star
Rock Star: My Life On and Off the Ice
By Jennifer Jones with Bob Weeks
The lawyer turned two-time world curling champion (and six-time national champ) offers recollections on her on-ice career (including sometimes-controversial personnel changes to her team) and the role her family (including her husband, fellow top-tier curler Brett Laing) played in supporting her rise to the top of women’s curling before her 2024 retirement.
Seeing You Home
Seeing You Home: Stories
By Catherine Hunter
The Winnipeg poet and novelist’s latest is a collection of 10 linked stories that follows longtime married couple Clare and Richard as the latter’s health deteriorates before his eventual death from cancer — and details what it is like for Clare to move forward through the heartbreak.
Hunter’s poignant, linked stories mull love, loss and meaning
Days of Feasting and Rejoicing
Days of Feasting and Rejoicing
By David Bergen
In his newest novel, the prolific and award-winning Winnipeg novelist takes readers to Thailand, where a woman’s good friend dies under mysterious circumstances — and she takes up her late friend’s identity. It’s a story Bergen honed over the last 15 years, more a literary thriller than the bulk of his other fiction.
The Longest Night
The Longest Night
By Lauren Carter
In the Manitoba author’s third novel, opens in 2021 on a brutally cold December night in Minnesota, with 18-year-old Ash locked out of her family’s home. After passing out in the cold in front of a neighbour’s house, she awakens inside, disoriented, and eventually realizes she’s now stranded living 20 years in the past.
Procession
Procession
By katherena vermette
After writing a trio of award-winning novels and a handful of graphic novels, the winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry in 2013 returned to her writerly roots with a series of expansive poems on ancestry, the connections to those who have come before the speaker and the notion of living life as a future ancestor.
Portage & Main
Portage & Main: How an Iconic Intersection Shaped Winnipeg’s History, Politics, and Urban Life
By Sabrina Janke and Alex Judge
The Winnipeg historians and hosts of the One Great History podcast explore the city’s most iconic intersection, closed to pedestrians nearly 50 years ago, and the impact it has had on civic culture and the urban environment downtown. The book was written prior to the reopening of Portage and Main in July, but its relevance remains.
winnipegfreepress.com/bensigurdson
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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