Skip to main content Skip to local navigation

Canadian literary gems to read this holiday season

By Dana Patrascu-Kingsley, Gail Vanstone | December 20, 2024

Organizers of York University’s acclaimed Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series – humanities Professor Gail Vanstone and Department of English contract faculty member Dana Patrascu-Kingsley – offer their 2024 list of best books to read over the holiday break and beyond.

Vanstone and Patrascu-Kingsley organize the annual series that brings new and established Canadian authors to the York community (either in person or via Zoom) to deliver readings from their books. Canadian Writers in Person is a for-credit course offered in the Culture & Expression program in the Department of Humanities in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, but the associated lecture series is free and open to members of the York community and the public who are not enrolled in the course. The series continues Jan. 14, 2025 with a reading from Kevin Chong’s latest novel, The Double Life of Benson Yu.

“This year,” Vanstone said, “our list highlights the diversity of voices that we strive to include on our reading lists for HUMA 1953 every year. This is recent Canadian literature at its best."

Patrascu-Kingsley adds, "It will entertain you. It will transport you to other countries and bring you right back with a changed perspective. It will make you cry and recognize our shared humanity. It will make you laugh and recognize our shared follies. It will deepen your understanding of the world and the people in it.”

(Read the full article on YFile)