The most recommended books about Saskatchewan

Who picked these books? Meet our 17 experts.

17 authors created a book list connected to Saskatchewan, and here are their favorite Saskatchewan books.
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Book cover of The Crazy Man

Gina McMurchy-Barber Author Of Free as a Bird

From my list on heroes who have a disability.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, when people were often uncomfortable with anyone who had a disability. My sister had Down syndrome and this drew a lot of negative attention. I struggled with being overprotective of her and often angry at those who treated her differently. When I grew up I became an advocate, not only for my sister, but for others who struggled with being accepted because of physical or developmental disabilities. Early on I worked in a pretty awful institution. What I learned there inspired my novel, Free as a Bird. Like my sister, I moved on to do other things, including archaeology, journalism, and teaching for 27 years.

Gina's book list on heroes who have a disability

Gina McMurchy-Barber Why did Gina love this book?

Twelve-year-old Emmaline and her mother are desperate for help with their farm and agree to take on Angus who has just been released from a hospital for patients with mental illness. At first they have the same fears and prejudice as people in town, but they come to learn that Angus is gentle and extremely knowledgeable. Thanks to him they have the best crop they’ve ever had. The most heroic point in the story is when one of the locals, Harry Record, leaves Angus far from town during a snowstorm with the expectation he will die. But as Angus struggles for safety he finds Harry’s little boy who was accidentally stranded in the storm and near death and gets him to the hospital in time to save his life. 

Quote: "That man is from the mental, stay away from him." 

This book was lovely to read because it was written…

By Pamela Porter,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Crazy Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It is 1965, and 12-year-old Emaline, living on a wheat farm, must deal with a family that is falling apart. When her dog, Prince, chases a hare into the path of the tractor, she chases after him, and her father accidentally runs over her leg, leaving her with a long convalescence and a permanent disability. Even worse, from Emaline's point of view, is that in his grief and guilt, her father shoots Prince and leaves Emaline and her mother on their own.

Despite the neighbors' disapproval, Emaline's mother hires Angus, a patient from the local mental hospital, to work their…


Book cover of I'll Be Watching

Amanda West Lewis Author Of These Are Not the Words

From my list on prose-poetry about childhood in a messy world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer, theatre artist and calligrapher who has spent a lifetime dedicated to the look, sound, texture and meaning of words. Writing in verse and prose poetry gives me a powerful tool to explore hard themes. Poetry is economical. It makes difficult subjects personal. Through poetry, I can explore painful choices intimately and emerge on a different path at a new phase of the journey. While my semi-autobiographical novel These Are Not the Words “is about” mental health and drug addiction, I’ve shown this through layers of images, sounds, textures, tastes—through shards of memories long submerged, recovered through writing, then structured and fictionalized through poetry.

Amanda's book list on prose-poetry about childhood in a messy world

Amanda West Lewis Why did Amanda love this book?

I’ll Be Watching is a verse novel that evokes place and character in tight, specific moments. It’s a page-turner that tells a harrowing story of children in 1941 surviving on their own through the brutal winter in a small Prairie town. Nuanced and impressionistic, moments are layered to create a world of childhood without a supportive adult net. I love the restraint and the specificity of Porter’s writing. She has focussed on childhood, during the war, in a very ordinary, very unlikely location and written a thriller.

By Pamela Porter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I'll Be Watching as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of The Crazy Man

In a small prairie town like Argue, Saskatchewan, everyone knows everybody else's business. It's common knowledge that the Loney family has been barely hanging on, but when the Loney children's father George dies in a drunken stupor and their stepmother takes off with a traveling Bible salesman, it looks as though the children are done for. Who's to save them when everyone is coping with their own problems the lingering Depression and the loss of the town's young men to the Second World War? Under the watchful eye of their ghostly parents and…


Book cover of The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour

Ali Bryan Author Of The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships

From my list on when you've locked your keys in the car.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love big books with strong thematic cores, sprawling casts, and curious timelines (from books that take place over four seconds to several decades) that explore what it means to be human on the most primal, unfiltered, and unflinching level. These books feature characters who are trying to reconcile the expectations they had for their lives, with their complicated realties. And yet, they simmer with warmth and hope, all of them reminders that there’s nobility in the struggle, and that there’s still plenty of room for joy, even when things don’t go as planned. Especially if they don’t. Ballsy, wise, and funny, these books speak to my existential comedic heart.    

Ali's book list on when you've locked your keys in the car

Ali Bryan Why did Ali love this book?

On the eve of the biggest performance tour of their career, members of the famous Prairie Chicken Dance Troupe find themselves food-poisoned and unfit to fly forcing a group of unlikely, inexperienced, and grossly unprepared alternates to take their place.

Chaos ensues at every stop across Europe. The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour is an intricately choreographed exploration of identity, self-acceptance, and what it means to step up especially when it means stepping out of your social, physical, and spiritual comfort zones.

The perfect read if you’ve ever danced like nobody’s watching and somebody was in fact watching. Comedic, insightful, and wildly entertaining.

By Dawn Dumont,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour

The hilarious story of an unlikely group of Indigenous dancers who find themselves thrown together on a performance tour of Europe

The Tour is all prepared. The Prairie Chicken dance troupe is all set for a fifteen-day trek through Europe, performing at festivals and cultural events. But then the performers all come down with the flu. And John Greyeyes, a retired cowboy who hasn't danced in fifteen years, finds himself abruptly thrust into the position of leading a hastily-assembled group of replacement dancers.

A group of expert dancers they are not. There's a…


Book cover of Who Has Seen the Wind

Annie Daylon Author Of Of Sea and Seed

From my list on timeless stories whose settings shape the plot.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised on the rugged island of Newfoundland and am enthralled by the ocean, its rhythm, its power. The setting of The Kerrigan Chronicles is the setting for my early life: same area, different era. As a child, I was unaware of the sacrifices and struggles of my ancestors. During cross-country telephone conversations with my aging father, I heard stories of poverty, illness, and war. When Dad described the earthquake and tsunami of 1929, I was hooked. I have written other novels, modern-day suspense that could quite frankly have been written by other people but The Kerrigan Chronicles are mine and mine alone.

Annie's book list on timeless stories whose settings shape the plot

Annie Daylon Why did Annie love this book?

Set on a Canadian prairie plain in the 1930s, Who Has Seen the Wind tells the coming-of-age story of a young Saskatchewan boy, Brian O’Connal, as he seeks meaning in life, death, and God. I love this book for its lyrical use of the wind which constantly sweeps across the prairie and through every aspect of the story. This book influenced me as a writer because I hoped to personify the sea the way W.O Mitchell did the wind.

By W.O. Mitchell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Who Has Seen the Wind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hailed as “one of the finest Canadian novels ever written” by The Globe and Mail, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind is a beloved mainstay of Canadian literature. This new, abridged audio edition is read by the author himself.

Mitchell’s novel follows Brian O’Connal, a young boy growing up in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Curious and eager to explore the impossibly vast Canadian prairie, Brian guides the listener through the inner workings of his small, rural town and its quirky characters. As Brian grows up, navigating faith, loss, and his relationships with his grandmother and his friends, we see him evolve…


Book cover of Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier

D'Arcy Jenish Author Of Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West

From my list on the exploraton of the West.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist, the author of 10 works of popular history, and, latterly, a playwright. For nearly 25 years, I have earned a living on the strength of my own writing. I have written one full-length play that was produced at an outdoor summer theatre in July 2023, and I have written three short plays for the Port Hope, Ontario Arts Festival. I now live in Peterborough, Ontario, about 90 miles northeast of Toronto, but have had a lifelong interest in the history of western North America by dint of having grown up in southeastern Saskatchewan and having worked as a journalist in Alberta in the early 1980s.  

D'Arcy's book list on the exploraton of the West

D'Arcy Jenish Why did D'Arcy love this book?

There are many reasons to love this book, and the subtitle says it all. This book is A History, A Story, And A Memory Of The Last Plains Frontier.

That last frontier was an arid, desolate corner of southwestern Saskatchewan where his American parents tried homesteading between 1914 and 1920 when Stegner was a child. The family returned to the U.S., but Stegner re-visited this land of his youth in the early 1950s and wrote one of the best accounts of the last frontier in the North American West.   

By Wallace Stegner,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Wolf Willow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Enchanting, heartrending and eminently enviable' Vladimir Nabokov

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner's boyhood was spent on the beautiful and remote frontier of the Cypress Hills in southern Saskatchewan, where his family homesteaded fro 1914 to 1920. In a recollection of his years there, Stegner applies childhood remembrances and adult reflection to the history of the region to create this wise and enduring portrait of pioneer community existing in the verge of a modern world.

'Stegner has summarized the frontier story and interpreted it as only one who was part of it could' The New York Times Book Review


Book cover of Homesick

Karin Melberg Schwier Author Of Small Reckonings

From my list on historical prairie fiction to transport readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am drawn to stories about “the olden days,” non-fiction, fiction, or first-hand storytelling by homesteaders who came from away to settle on the prairies. Perhaps it is a way to recall my own farm childhood, a way to recall both joyful and unhappy times. When my brother taught me to climb (and get down from) the apple tree. The realization the pet steer who followed me around all summer and occasionally let me ride on his back while he grazed would be met by the mobile butcher truck in the fall. Hardships and simple joys, the life lessons, the banal work done for the family and farm to survive.

Karin's book list on historical prairie fiction to transport readers

Karin Melberg Schwier Why did Karin love this book?

One of my absolute favourite storytellers, Guy Vanderhaege can transport the reader into his imagined world with the first sentence.

This historical prairie fiction, the fully conceived characters and storyline, and that important rural farm setting makes this book a favourite that I have often re-read.

The complicated dark and sometimes comedic entanglements of family, the disconnects and reconnections because of mistruths, misunderstandings, lost opportunities, and redemption are woven in an intriguing, believable fabric that will break a reader’s heart.

By Guy Vanderhaeghe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Homesick as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It is the summer of 1959, and in a prairie town in Saskatchewan, Alec Monkman waits for his estranged daughter to come home, with the grandson he has never seen. But this is an uneasy reunion. Fiercely independent, Vera has been on her own since running away at nineteen – first to the army, and then to Toronto. Now, for the sake of her young son, she must swallow her pride and return home after seventeen years. As the story gradually unfolds, the past confronts the present in unexpected ways as the silence surrounding Vera’s brother is finally shattered and…


Book cover of Anomaly Flats

Will Hartzell-Baird Author Of The Taste of Cashews

From my list on science fiction for people who enjoy comedy.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my teenage years, it was sci-fi (and later fantasy) comedies that made me fall in love with reading. There was just something about exploring worlds where anything could happen mixed with the joy of laughter that kept drawing me back in. Naturally, in the many...many...years that followed, I've read countless novels from a wide variety of genres, but sci-fi comedy will always hold a special place in my heart.

Will's book list on science fiction for people who enjoy comedy

Will Hartzell-Baird Why did Will love this book?

Tired of spaceships and A.I.? Then how about a humorous take on sci-fi horror? If Twin Peaks were a comedy…and also a book…it would’ve been Anomaly Flats. Weird, disturbing events abound in this quaint Midwestern town where an ancient evil lurks behind the canned goods at the local Walmart, and–since they weren’t trying to kill me personally–many of them were hilarious. Or at least the way the characters reacted to them were hilarious. And in the end, isn’t that close enough?

By Clayton Smith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Anomaly Flats as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sci-fi gets wickedly fun in Anomaly Flats, the deliciously dark comedy from the author of Apocalypticon!

What readers are saying:

"Clayton Smith's work is imaginative, unique, and ridiculously entertaining. I didn't think anything could top Apocalypticon, but I was SO wrong."

"Its ongoing charm is hypnotic."

"Shove over, Christopher Moore…Weird Fun has a new author king!"

Somewhere just off the interstate, in the heart of the American Midwest, there’s a quaint, quirky town where the stars in the sky circle a hypnotic void….where magnetic fields play havoc with time and perception…where metallic rain and plasma rivers and tentacles in the…


Book cover of Song of Batoche

E.M. Spencer Author Of Freedom Reins

From my list on Canadian historical fiction with strong females.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian who enjoys travelling and reading historical fiction from around the world. Having had the privilege of living in a variety of areas in Canada from coast to coast since childhood, I can recall listening to the stories of past generations and exploring the locations where some of these events took place. With a passion for Canada’s beauty and the history of its people, I like to research, explore, and incorporate these passions into my own stories.

E.M.'s book list on Canadian historical fiction with strong females

E.M. Spencer Why did E.M. love this book?

Since discovering details of my personal genealogy, and learning that I am Metis, I have become more interested in learning about the history of the Metis people of Canada. During my research, I came upon this book which I found to be an enjoyable mix of fiction and history based around the battle between the Metis people of the prairies and the Canadian government. I particularly enjoyed how the author showed the strengths and weaknesses of real historical figures, Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, through the eyes of strong female characters.

Many French Canadians are the descendants of the King's Daughters (Filles du Roi) of this era. Many also are the descendants of mixed French and Algonquian marriages. Wikipedia…The Métis (/meɪˈtiː(s)/; French: [metis]) are Indigenous peoples in the three Prairie Provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta), as well as parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States.

By Maia Caron,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Song of Batoche as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Fiction. Native American Studies. Louis Riel arrives at Batoche in 1884 to help the Métis fight for their lands and discovers that the rebellious outsider Josette Lavoie is a granddaughter of the famous chief Big Bear, whom he needs as an ally. But Josette learns of Riel's hidden agenda — to establish a separate state with his new church at its head — and refuses to help him. Only when the great Gabriel Dumont promises her that he will not let Riel fail does she agree to join the cause. In this raw wilderness on the brink of change, the…


Book cover of Livingsky

Rosemary McCracken Author Of Uncharted Waters

From Rosemary's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Wordsmith Reader Self-starter Teacher Traveller

Rosemary's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Rosemary McCracken Why did Rosemary love this book?

When Merry Bell returns to her hometown of Livingsky, Saskatchewan, she faces three challenges: how to launch her new PI business, where to find cheap-but-decent living quarters, and finetuning her new identity as a transgender woman. Merry is an engaging, three-dimensional character, and, as a trans woman, she’s in a special spotlight in this new mystery series.

Canadian author Anthony Bidulka broke new ground for diversity in 2003 when he published the first (Amuse Bouche) of his eight-book mystery series with its gay private investigator, Russell Quant. And he’s broken new ground again this year with Merry Bell.

The book ends with a teaser, which likely means there will be more Merry Bell adventures to come.

By Anthony Bidulka,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Livingsky as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Going home is not always the best answer. Forced to leave behind her big city dreams, Merry Bell returns to Livingsky Saskatchewan to start over. Living with plenty of secrets, but no money, friends, or place to live during a prairie winter-all while trying to start her own PI business-proves to be more challenging than she imagined. With a first case that quickly turns more dangerous than it first appeared, Merry must deal with a dodgy client, the murder of the surgeon who performed her gender affirming surgery, and more than one mysterious stranger.

For the first time since his…


Book cover of Murder, Exit Stage Right

Yvonne Rediger Author Of Condo Crazy

From my list on discovering which type of mystery fits you.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've read mysteries of all types since I was young. Unfortunately for my publishers, I like to write in several different genres too. Everyone loves a mystery, a puzzle, sussing out the hidden. If you think you don’t like mysteries, then I think you just haven’t found your genre yet. Reading a mystery is like treasure hunting, we all want to find the gold. I love clever dialogue, characters you want to meet in real life, and accompany them while solving a mystery. All the books I have recommended have an overarching mystery element. I write like that too, also, one element links all my books regardless of genre. Happy treasure hunting!

Yvonne's book list on discovering which type of mystery fits you

Yvonne Rediger Why did Yvonne love this book?

In this cozy mystery Mable and Violet are fast friends and have odd adventures. I think everyone needs a partner in crime, so to speak. This is a series; each book has a different theme, which I like. This story is set in a theatre, a one-act play competition in small town Saskatchewan, Canada. From my experience in little theatre odd things do happen. Like in my writing, this story has humour, intrigue, and enduring friendship. The added bonus, a theatre critic who has it coming. I like figuring out who had the biggest axe to grind and what motives each character is hiding.

By Joan Havelange,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Murder, Exit Stage Right as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Murder is a hard act to follow. All the drama does not take place on the stage at the Glenhaven Drama Festival. A collection of amateur actors with big egos land in Mabel Havelock’s hometown. And Mabel’s acting debut is not the only thing on her mind. Mysterious accidents and sabotage are plaguing the festival.

Mabel and her best friend Violet Ficher are determined to ferret out the culprit. The problem is why? Who has anything to gain? And why did Sherman have to die?


Book cover of The Crazy Man
Book cover of I'll Be Watching
Book cover of The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour

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