As many of you are doubtless aware, the next CBC Canada Reads competition will be slightly different from past ones, in that the public is being asked to narrow the field of candidates by voting for the 40 essential Canadian novels of the decade. Polling has now closed, and the list of 40 nominees has been revealed. Check out the list below, or click here for the Canada Reads website.

• A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews
• Bottle Rocket Hearts, by Zoe Whittall
• Clara Callan, by Richard B. Wright
• Come, Thou Tortoise, by Jessica Grant
• Conceit, by Mary Novik
• Crow Lake, by Mary Lawson
• Drive-by Saviours, by Chris Benjamin
• Elle, by Douglas Glover
• Essex County, by Jeff Lemire
• Far to Go, by Alison Pick
• February, by Lisa Moore
• Galore, by Michael Crummey
• Heave, by Christy Ann Conlin
• Inside, by Kenneth J. Harvey
• Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hay
• Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
• Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O’Neill
• Moody Food, by Ray Robertson
• Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
• Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
• Room, by Emma Donoghue
• Shelf Monkey, by Corey Redekop
• Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
• Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb
• The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis
• The Birth House, by Ami McKay
• The Bishop’s Man, by Linden MacIntyre
• The Bone Cage, by Angie Abdou
• The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill
• The Day the Falls Stood Still, by Cathy Marie Buchanan
• The Fallen, by Stephen Finucan
• The Girls Who Saw Everything, by Sean Dixon
• The Last Crossing, by Guy Vanderhaeghe
• The Stone Carvers, by Jane Urquhart
• The Way the Crow Flies, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood
• Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden
• Through Black Spruce, by Joseph Boyden
• Twenty-Six, by Leo McKay Jr.
• Unless, by Carol Shields