CBC’s Canada Reads has released its longlist for this year’s battle of the books, and its theme for this year’s contest: books that demonstrate the power storytelling has to inspire, connect, and grow.

This year’s longlist includes 15 books across a range of genres, from literary novels to memoir to hockey romance.

The five panellists for this year’s competition – and the books each panellist has chosen to champion – will be announced on Jan. 22.  The debates will take place April 13–16.

The titles on the 2026 longlist are:

• A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Celestina’s House by Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez (Rare Machines/Dundurn Press)
• Crossroads: My Story of Tragedy and Resilience as a Humboldt Bronco by Kaleb Dahlgren (Collins/HarperCollins Canada)
• Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe (House of Anansi Press)
• Foe by Iain Reid (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster)
• Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (Carina Press/Harlequin)
• It’s Different This Time by Joss Richard (Dell/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Never Been Better by Leanne Toshiko Simpson (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park (Dundurn Press)
• Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging by Rachel Phan (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Searching for Terry Punchout by Tyler Hellard (Invisible Publishing)
• Slice the Water by PP Wong (Goose Lane Editions)
• The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor (Random House Canada)
• The Hunger We Pass Down by Jen Sookfong Lee (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)

The winner of last year’s contest was Ma-Nee Chacaby’s A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder, published by University of Manitoba Press and written with Mary Louisa Plummer.