Here are 71 books that The Main fans have personally recommended if you like
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Some look through the glass and admire what lies beyond. I look beyond the glass and imagine what's ahead. What is an adventure? It's an encounter with the unexpected, an exquisite moment in time that can never be repeated, those memorable chapters in our personal story that cause us to go to the attic and lift the lid of the trunk. I've lived the experiences in my books because I walked the beaten paths where those stories were born and embraced the culture that colors the pages. I'm an intrepid traveler and adventurer with still a few personal chapters to write. As I look beyond the glass, I wonder… Will my trunk ever be full?
I am particularly drawn to stories about early adventures at sea.
Life on a whaling ship was difficult and bred all manner of contemptible acts by the crew. When the journey was ill-fated, like the one in this book, it pointed the spotlight directly on the tainted core of ship life.
This book introduced the greedy side of the 1800s whaling industry and told the story surrounding the doomed whaling ship and the ship’s drug-addicted surgeon. It presented the raw side of humanity and what lengths desperate men resort to in order to survive. It was shades of whaling seamen Herman Melville and John Rumell’s experiences surviving with savages.
The story was riveting and begged the question: Who are the realsavages?
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN NOTABLE BOOK 2016
A ship sets sail with a killer on board . . . 1859. A man joins a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Circle. Having left the British Army with his reputation in tatters, Patrick Sumner has little option but to accept the position of ship's surgeon on this ill-fated voyage. But when, deep into the journey, a cabin boy is discovered brutally killed, Sumner finds himself forced to act. Soon he will face an evil even greater than he had encountered at the…
I was fascinated by American True Crime magazines from an early age. I used to buy them with my pocket money from a second-hand bookstore near my home. I graduated to reading novels by the age of ten, sneaking my father’s book collection into my bedroom one at a time to read after lights out. His books covered everything from The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins to The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley. By seventeen, I promised myself I’d write a novel one day. Most of my books are crime themed with a supernatural flavour. My debut, The Sister was published in 2013 and since then I’ve completed three more novels and several short stories.
This is a story about a contract killer who only kills bad people and what is an assassin if not a paid serial killer? This is not Stephen King’s traditional fayre, but it is unmistakably a Stephen King story. Essentially, the book explores Summer’s past, waiting for his next hit and his life after the job is complete. King effortlessly takes us into a world of war, injustice, revenge, and love, all the while unravelling the complexities that comprise Billy Summers. It really was one of those books I didn’t want to end. I will definitely explore further crime-themed books by Stephen King.
Master storyteller Stephen King, whose “restless imagination is a power that cannot be contained” (The New York Times Book Review), presents an unforgettable and relentless #1 New York Times bestseller about a good guy in a bad job.
Chances are, if you’re a target of Billy Summers, two immutable truths apply: You’ll never even know what hit you, and you’re really getting what you deserve. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business—but he’ll do the job only if the assignment is a truly bad person. But now, time is catching up with him, and Billy wants…
I was fascinated by American True Crime magazines from an early age. I used to buy them with my pocket money from a second-hand bookstore near my home. I graduated to reading novels by the age of ten, sneaking my father’s book collection into my bedroom one at a time to read after lights out. His books covered everything from The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins to The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley. By seventeen, I promised myself I’d write a novel one day. Most of my books are crime themed with a supernatural flavour. My debut, The Sister was published in 2013 and since then I’ve completed three more novels and several short stories.
A great debut novel that slowly picks up pace as we get to know the local characters. When a young girl disappears from a fair, Casey, a female cop suffering from PTSD, is called in to pick up the trail of a spooky suspect who calls his victims Dollies. I loved the way the tensions ramp up until the book becomes unputdownable.
“If you like Harlan Coben novels you will definitely be happy with this read.” “A great read for mystery fans. Loved it!” “I stayed up much too late to finish it because I didn't want to put it down.”
After moving to the California High Desert for a new start, Deputy Casey Lang faces a hard truth: She must work through her fear of shooting another child or kiss her career goodbye. The disappearance of a six-year-old girl from a summer concert in the park puts Casey's resolve to the test. The only member of the force with experience working…
I was fascinated by American True Crime magazines from an early age. I used to buy them with my pocket money from a second-hand bookstore near my home. I graduated to reading novels by the age of ten, sneaking my father’s book collection into my bedroom one at a time to read after lights out. His books covered everything from The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins to The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley. By seventeen, I promised myself I’d write a novel one day. Most of my books are crime themed with a supernatural flavour. My debut, The Sister was published in 2013 and since then I’ve completed three more novels and several short stories.
In her first crime novel, Gaites portrays a psychopathic monster in Ivan Smallbone, and a relentless race against time by police to stop him. Populated by flawed characters, Gaites explores the human psyche to great effect in driving her novel to its inevitable and tragic conclusion. Not for the squeamish.
1960 – Late in life Marjorie Smallbone gave birth to her only child. Relieved he was perfect, she named him Ivan. As the years went by, she discovered perfection is only skin-deep.
1983 – Sentenced to serve eight years in prison for the manslaughter of many young school children, upon her release in 1991 June Saunders’ appearance had changed. Shortly after, so did her name.
1994 – New Year’s Eve. DI Leo Thorne has identified similarities between two vicious rapes, but with no evidence to go on, his investigation’s stalled before it’s begun. Then, a sadistic rapist…
Between the two of us, we have written over a dozen books and won numerous prizes. Wilson, when not writing critically-acclaimed music or explaining how to catch a haggis, has received the Ontario Historical Association’s Joseph Brant Award for King Alpha’s Song in a Strange Land.Reid, who wisely passed up the chance of a law career in order to play an extra year of soccer, received the C. P. Stacey Award for African Canadians in Union Blue. Both writers believe that sports offer a valuable lens by which to examine a society’s core values.
Canadians have long worried about their national identity. Indeed, some have considered whether or not there even is one.
Poulter, in her innovative and stimulating book, examines an early attempt in the mid-nineteenth century to create an imagined Canadian identity. Wishing to distance themselves from a quintessential “British” identity, second-generation Montreal Anglophones were searching for a new way to identify. They saw themselves as “native Canadians”.
To solidify this identity, they pursued, as Poulter explained, “national attributes, or visual icons, that came to be recognized at home and abroad as distinctly “Canadian.’” It meant, in practice, taking up propriate costumes and sports such as snowshoeing, tobogganing, winter hunting, and lacrosse. All of these activities – undertaken in sartorially correct attire – had previously been the preserve of the Indigenous and French Canadians. Here, was an Englishness reimagined on a frozen landscape.
By imposing perceived British attributes of order, discipline, and…
How did British colonists in Victorian Montreal come to think of themselves as "native Canadian"? This richly illustrated work reveals that colonists adopted, then appropriated, Aboriginal and French Canadian activities such as hunting, lacrosse, snowshoeing, and tobogganing. In the process, they constructed visual icons that were recognized at home and abroad as distinctly "Canadian." This new Canadian nationality mimicked indigenous characteristics but ultimately rejected indigenous players, and championed the interests of white, middle-class, Protestant males who used their newly acquired identity to dominate the political realm. English Canadian identity was not formed solely by emulating what was British; this book…
I chose these books because a theme in my writing is standing up, and being a champion for things that get forgotten – books, music, events, people. Also, for anyone who has done investigative reporting, the sense is always like you’re going down a rabbit hole and penetrating a dark, undiscovered country. Also – and I don’t think many people know this – I was an English Lit major in college at the University of Toronto. In my early days I did a lot of reading, on a disparate field of interests.
That’s right, a cookbook. Julian Armstrong was the long-time food editor for The Montreal Gazette, Quebec’s largest English-language newspaper. I lean heavily on this book to re-connect with my French heritage. What I love about A Taste of Quebec is its economy – one page, a short description, a list of ingredients with measurements, and a small insert telling you where the recipe originated and a little about that region. That’s it, on to the next page. Unlike online recipes – which can be convenient – there are no ads or long narratives about the author’s personal and complicated relationship with fennel.
I’m an American-born cartoonist who’s been living and working in Montreal since 2015. My mother is from Quebec, and when I immigrated here I was looking to reconnect with my cultural roots. Reading graphic novels from here was a huge part of how I got to know my adopted community. I might be a bit biased, but I have to say Quebec has one of the world’s most vibrant comic arts scenes; a blend of American comic books mixed with Franco-Belgian bande dessinée. With more and more graphic novels from Quebec getting translated into English you’re sure to find something you’ll dig, whether you’re looking for slice-of-life or science fiction.
What’s worse than a Montreal winter? How about four straight years of Montreal winter! While a nuclear power plant melting down and blanketing the metropolis with irradiated snow might seem like a horrible situation, Cab plays this apocalypse for laughs. Gertrude, a superhumanly-strong, snowmobile-piloting delivery driver, has to face off against irradiated beasts, gargantuan snowflakes, and even the withering scorn of fashionable Mile End hipsters. Maniacally creative and drawn with a light touch.
Nothing's rougher than a Canadian winter . . . except maybe one that never ends!
It's been nine years since an accident at a nuclear power plant plunged Montreal into an eternal winter; the city is now blanketed 365 days a year in radioactive snow. But life goes on for folks like Flavie Beaumont, a mail courier on snowmobile who's carved out a pretty normal life for herself, despite mutant crushes, eclectic urban fauna, and unrelenting meteorological events of unprecedented force. It turns out surviving nuclear winter is hard . . . but it's possible surviving your twenties is even…
I’m an American-born cartoonist who’s been living and working in Montreal since 2015. My mother is from Quebec, and when I immigrated here I was looking to reconnect with my cultural roots. Reading graphic novels from here was a huge part of how I got to know my adopted community. I might be a bit biased, but I have to say Quebec has one of the world’s most vibrant comic arts scenes; a blend of American comic books mixed with Franco-Belgian bande dessinée. With more and more graphic novels from Quebec getting translated into English you’re sure to find something you’ll dig, whether you’re looking for slice-of-life or science fiction.
No list of Quebecois graphic novels would be complete without an entry from Michel Rabagliati’s excellent Paul series, which is a beloved publishing phenomenon in the province. In all honesty, you can’t go wrong with any of his books, each volume in Rabagliati’s semi-autobiographical series offers a discrete tale of a different moment in his alter-ego Paul’s life, from light childhood adventures through very intense stories of middle age, so you can easily pick up any of them and go from there. This emotionally rich stand-alone volume (the basis of the 2015 film Paul à Québec) explores the life and death of the protagonist’s gruff father-in-law and is a deep exploration of family, history, and legacy that is truly moving.
The Song of Roland focuses on the life and death of the father-in-law of Rabagliati’s alter-ego Paul, who has been called “The Tintin of Quebec” By Le Devoir. The French edition, Paul à Québec, was critically hailed, winning the FNAC Audience Award at France’s Angouleme festival, a Shuster Award for Outstanding Cartoonist, and was nominated for the City of Montreal’s Grand Prize, and the Audience Award at Montreal’s Salon du Livre. The book is currently in production by Caramel Films. In his classic European cartooning style Rabagliati effortlessly tackles big subjects. As the family stands vigil over Roland in his…
I hold a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. In addition to the usual two-year program, I studied an extra semester, where I read all the best children’s books about friendship. I wanted to learn how the great authors such as A. A. Milne, James Marshall, and Arnold Lobel wrote stories full of so much heart and humor. My love of friendship stories burgeoned from there. And now, it’s with great delight that I offer you my Best Children’s Books About Friendship—and, of course, my very own friendship story, Big Bear and Little Fish.
The Lion and the Bird is the perfect friendship book for quiet times, for easing into the day after just waking up or for calming down when it’s time to say goodnight. Adults and children alike, will be drawn into this sweet story, where the lion discovers an injured bird, nurses it back to health, then waits for it to return the next year. The combination of the gentle text with the charming illustrations makes my heart swell every time.
One autumn day, a lion finds a wounded bird in his garden. With the departure of the bird's flock, the lion decides that it's up to him to care for the bird. He does and the two become fast friends. Nevertheless, the bird departs with his flock the following autumn. What will become of Lion and what will become of their friendship? Note: some pages in this book are intentionally blank to represent snow. Marianne Dubuc received her degree in graphic design from the University of Quebec, Montreal. She has created many different kinds of books for readers of all…
I'm just a curious person. I have always been fascinated by literally everything. Everything is jaw-dropping: whether it's lying under a dark sky and marveling at the fact that what you see is the past (the time it takes for light from distant stars to reach your retina) or that your feelings for loved ones boil down to biochemistry, or thinking that intelligence is everywhere—from bacteria to plants and fungi, to Homo sapiens. As a university professor, I only understood later in life that I needed to leave that “ivory tower,” listen to non-academics, and read popular books that, in their apparent simplicity, can reach further and deeper.
I just devoured it on a recent train trip. I found it fascinating, a little gem. OMG, it holds so much wisdom! Less is always more, and Saucier knows what she’s doing.
The way she plays with characters: the tiniest of things compared to the magnificence of a great historical fire. I find it incredible to think how the Earth’s own dynamics and the events that occur on it can shape our personalities and the narratives of what is to come in our lives: love, which we can all find where we least expect it, and death.
A CBC CANADA READS 2015 SELECTION! FINALIST FOR THE 2013 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FRENCH-TO-ENGLISH TRANSLATION Tom and Charlie have decided to live out the remainder of their lives on their own terms, hidden away in a remote forest, their only connection to the outside world a couple of pot growers who deliver whatever they can't eke out for themselves. But one summer two women arrive. One is a young photographer documenting a a series of catastrophic forest fires that swept Northern Ontario early in the century; she's on the trail of the recently deceased Ted Boychuck, a survivor…
