Each week, Globe and Mail staffers and readers share what they’re reading now, whether it’s a hot new release or an old book they’re discovering for the first time. Tell me about a book you loved and we might publish your recommendation. Fill out this form, or send your book recommendation to Lara Pingue at lpingue@globeandmail.com
The Globe 100: The best books of 2025
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Death on the Ice, Cassie Brown
On my first visit to Newfoundland, a green-haired teenaged tour guide told me about Death on the Ice by Cassie Brown. The account of the 1914 Newfoundland sealing disaster was required reading in high school, he told us, and I came to wish it were required reading for all Canadians. Seventy-eight poorly paid sealers died in the tragedy after being stranded for three days on the Atlantic ice during a blizzard. Years after the devastating event, the few survivors admitted that no one on the sealing ship led a mutiny because all were afraid of the bully of a captain. I re-read this moving story every 10 years or so to be reminded of how the working poor have often been regarded as expendable. On my most recent reading, Death on the Ice had me thinking of immigrants as the 21st century’s expendable Newfoundland sealers. Immigrants are too often dealt with the same unforgivable callousness and deliberate deceptions.
- Globe reader Thelma Fayle, Victoria
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Herscht 07769, Laszlo Krasznahorkai
I recently read Herscht 07769, my first foray into the world of Nobel Prize-winning author Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Set in a small city in the former East Germany, the novel explores dark themes of fear and powerlessness, as city locals and Florian Herscht, the main character, contend with a group of violent Neo-Nazis in a world that feels dangerous and out of control. The novel is written in one long sentence, which sounds gimmicky, but the format works well and highlights the sense of unease. Some readers may find the novel bleak, but underpinning the work is also the hopeful music of Bach and ultimately Herscht’s violent response to the mayhem caused by the Neo-Nazis feels like just retribution.
-Globe reader Michael Minnes, Toronto
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Nota Bene, David Roberts
David Roberts’s debut crime thriller, Nota Bene, takes us to Malta and Tunisia, with travel descriptions so vivid I felt as though I was there alongside the protagonist. The novel follows a detective who is hired to find a missing archeologist who was put in charge of authenticating an artifact. But when the archeologist is found dead, things take a dark turn. The detective encounters threats and betrayal that all lead to a journey to hell. The page-turning suspense made this book hard to put down.
-Globe reader Karen Walden, Vancouver
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Access: Gaining entry to the C Suite, Martin Wilkins
As a business leader, I read Martin Wilkins’ book, Access: Gaining entry to the C Suite, with great interest and a deep appreciation for its relevance. I’ve seen firsthand how Martin builds trust and sparks meaningful conversations with senior decision makers. His approach goes far beyond selling; it’s about connecting with purpose, listening with intent, and delivering value that truly resonates at the executive level – and beyond. Whether you’re looking to elevate your sales strategy or simply trying to embrace the core values of honesty and integrity in your everyday life, this book is well worth your time.
-Globe reader Leslie McElhaney
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The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz
Did you ever think that the name of a novel could have multiple meanings? In The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s rollicking 2021 mystery, it does. The story follows respected writer Jacob Finch Bonner, who’s suffering from a bad case of writer’s block. While teaching a course at an obscure school, he discovers that one of his students has begun writing a book with a tantalizing plot. When that student later dies, Bonner does the unthinkable: he publishes the student’s work as his own. As the book goes on to achieve critical and commercial success, Bonner becomes hounded by emails from a mysterious source who knows what he did. Who’s plotting against him? What’s so special about the plot of this book, and is it actually fictional? This book gives readers a peek into the world of writers and writing, and the ethical dilemmas involved.
-Globe reader Karim Bhaloo, Toronto
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The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
My one and only exposure to “mindfulness training” was at a work event and involved staring intently at a single tinfoil-wrapped Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss. I checked out. For the similarly disaffected, I highly recommendThe Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker’s entertaining exercise in high-octane inwardness, or mindfulness for the easily distracted. The story follows a man on his lunch hour, in and around his office building as he thinks about Styrofoam cups, shoelaces, microwave ovens, magic markers, antiperspirants, Wittgenstein, rotisserie chickens and more. It’s a wild ride, mostly up and down escalators, which are a particular source of fascination for Baker. Readers are advised not to ignore the many, many footnotes. In this novel like no other, they may be the best part.
- Globe reader Farley Helfant, Toronto
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My Heart Will Heal, Nicole Martins Ferreira
Going through a breakup can be a lonely experience. Luckily, a new book by my friend, author Nicole Martins Ferreira, is a comfort. My Heart Will Heal: Breakup Poems for Broken Hearts is a collection of poetry that acts like a friend guiding you through the fallout. Whether you’re reeling from a recent break-up or reflecting on a romance long past, the poems offer a hand to hold. Each poem weaves together a past relationship, both in its actual and idealized form, posing questions that help readers learn to cherish the experience and let go of the hurt of the past.
-Globe reader Emily Farkas, Thornhill, Ont.
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Like an Iceberg, Jane George
Author Jane George spent a decade travelling to the north as a journalist, trying to learn and understand from the people she encountered there in the 1990s. Her captivating book, Like an Iceberg: Confessions of an Arctic Journalist, captures a period of change and challenge in Canada’s North, and she doesn’t sugarcoat any of it. George was not only fascinated by the north, but she was also in love with it and its people. I’d recommend this for anyone interested in the recent history of Nunavut.
-Globe reader Louise Caron, Hatley, Que.
Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told by Jeremy Atherton LinAmazon/Supplied
Deep House, Jeremy Atherton Lin
Is gay marriage just an expedient mechanism for gay Americans to secure full personhood for their non-American partners? In Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told, author Jeremy Atherton Lin poses that question to exhilarating effect. The book traces his years-long relationship with the love of his life, a Brit whom he meets in the mid-nineties, weaving together fraught stages of his partner’s under-the-radar life with him in San Francisco with accounts of the barriers long faced by homosexual Americans. Atherton Lin captures numerous soul-crushing moves by U.S. authorities to monitor, police and suppress gay sex. Against that, the author sets exquisitely raunchy paeans to gay lust and ardour – I couldn’t get enough. What a lovely, unadulterated celebration of all that triggers homophobes.
-Globe reader Viola Funk, Vancouver
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. VanceAmazon/Supplied
Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy is a heartbreaking account of economic hardship in Appalachia, tracing the story of the grandparents who raised him after his mother failed him. This book is a love letter to those grandparents, not a tribute to the American working class. Given his economic history, Vance’s choice to run alongside Donald Trump, whose budget cuts leave so many vulnerable, seems baffling to me. Vance’s experiences of poverty must’ve fuelled his unbridled ambitions for great wealth and power, but he left “his people” to fend for themselves.
-Globe reader Johanna van Zanten, Kelowna, B.C.
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Elbows Up! edited by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
It has been an odd year to be a Canadian. No matter your positioning on the political spectrum, Donald Trump’s first-quarter promise of making Canada the 51st state likely inspired some thought about what, exactly, it means to be a citizen of the true north strong and free. Elbows Up!, a collection of essays mulling this very question, is a timely, thoughtful collection of work from some of the country’s brightest literary luminaries. It’s a thoughtful meditation on Canada’s perpetual – and, suddenly, urgent – identity crisis.
-Rebecca Tucker, Deputy Arts Editor, Globe and Mail
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Dianaworld: An Obsession, Edward White
Just when you thought you could barely stand to read another word about Diana Spencer, once Princess of Wales, in comes Dianaworld: An Obsession, a searing biography by Edward White. White presents a snapshot of a British aristocrat of the highest order, deeply and admittedly uneducated about anything political, but crafty and wise enough to work her way into celebrity status. Unlike all the tripe one reads about her, this deeply researched tale is done by an archivist of the highest calibre. There is so much in this book unlike anything ever written about this woman before. Prepare yourself for a surprising read.
-Globe reader Gail Benjafield, St. Catharines, Ont.
Tell us about a book you love
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