For all you bookworms, this is an exciting time! Our favourite Canadian company, Indigo, puts their expert book-sellers to work, scouring pages of thousands of books and spending hours and hours coming up with their favourites. What does this leave us with? A list of the top ten best reads of the year! After many months of flipping pages, it’s fun to see books you’ve read (and loved) on this list, and even more fun to see page turners that you haven’t laid your eyes on! Thankfully for us, Indigo has shared that list. A few of my already-faves live here, like Rupi Kaur’s, The Sun And Her Flowers and there are a few that I can’t wait to dive into!

Scroll down for Indigo’s Top Five Books of 2017 – and if you scroll down a little more, you may just find a giveaway.

#1 For the past ten days, the votes have been counted (and counted again) and at last, the best book of the year is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. The Hate U Give is A Young Adult title but also appeals to adult readers, Indigo staff call it “timely, topical and educational”

About: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

#2 Coming in at Indigo’s number two (even though it’s my number one) is Rupi Kaur’s second poetic masterpiece; The Sun And Her Flowers. Rupi Kaur is a proud Canadian and has been said to have “reinvigorated the poetry category.” Her writing is honest, raw and often relatable.

About: From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself. Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

this is the recipe of life

said my mother

as she held me in her arms as i wept

think of those flowers you plant

in the garden each year

they will teach you

that people too

must wilt

fall

root

rise

in order to bloom

#3 Number three is a piece that I haven’t yet read, and can’t wait to get my hands on. Fredrik Backman’s “Beartown” is a fictional story which has been described as “dazzling and profound” – this should come as no surprise since Backman has already been named the #1 New York Times Best Selling Author.

About: People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

#4 Indigo’s fourth BEST book of 2017 was created by an author who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and The Toronto Star. Fellow Canadian, Heather O’Neill makes the charts with The Lonely Hearts Hotel. Toronto Star comments “It would be hard to overstate here just how good the writing is in The Lonely Hearts Hotel. For it is stunningly, stunningly good.”

About: Exquisitely imagined and hypnotically told, The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. Set in the early part of the 20th Century, it is an unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose fortune hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to escape one’s origins. It might also take true love. Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their true talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing for the rich, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.

#5 In fifth place, Indigo voters chose a non-fiction novel by author (and former math prodigy) Ben Blum. Ranger Games is a “story of Soliders, Family and Inexplicable crime.” Readers describe Ranger Games as  “Intricate, heartrending and morally urgent.”

About: As a child Ben Blum was a math prodigy adrift in a family of alpha males, foremost among them his first cousin Alex, an immensely popular high school hockey star who had one unshakeable goal in life: endure a brutally difficult training course, become a U.S. Army Ranger and fight terrorists for his country. He succeeded, but on the last day of his leave before deployment, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma and committed armed robbery. believed passionately in the Ranger’s creed, which emphasized honour above all. At first, Alex insisted he thought the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger training program. His attorney presented a case based on the theory that the Ranger indoctrination mirrored that of a cult. Or was it the influence of the soldier who planned the robbery, Alex’s superior, Luke Elliott Sommer, a charismatic combat veteran full of swagger and grandiose schemes?

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SO, if you were wondering how to spend your time as the days get shorter and the evenings get colder, I think we’ve got your answer! To learn about the rest of the TOP 10 list, click here. For the next three days, all the books from the Top 10 list are 40% off, in store and online.

**Giveaway**

Since I’ve already had the pleasure of reading most of these books, I thought it might be best if we gave YOU an excuse to stay cozied up on the couch this November. Comment YOUR favourite book of 2017 for a chance to win a prize pack featuring all five of the books listed above. If they’re not all on your must-read list, they’ll act as great Christmas gifts.

Happy reading, book worms!

xx n