The Miramichi Reader’s Best Fiction of 2025
It’s the end of 2025 already, and so the “Best of” lists are surfacing! Here are some of TMR’s Best fiction of the year, chosen by our dedicated team of contributors.
Book Awards
Read the Governor General’s Literary Award Shortlists with The Miramichi Reader!
The 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award shortlists have been announced, and you can find reviews of many of the shortlisted titles right here on TMR! Our reviewers have such good taste 💁♀️.
Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction 2024-1984 by Gary Barwin
A Canadian writer born in Northern Ireland to South African Jewish parents of Lithuanian descent, Gary Barwin is a man of many hats: poet, writer, composer, multimedia artist, performer and educator. His work has won many awards.
Playground by Richard Powers
I had already committed to review Playground by Richard Powers for The Miramichi Reader when it was announced that Playground was long-listed for the 2024 Booker Prize.
Silken Gazelles by Jokha Alharthi
Silken Gazelles is a translated work of literary fiction that demands slow and careful attention while reading to catch all the beauty.
THINGS YOU MAY FIND HIDDEN IN MY EAR: POEMS FROM GAZA by Mosab Abu Toha
Political poetry is crucial to the Palestinian literary tradition, embodied perhaps most famously by the poet and author Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), who was displaced as a child during the Nakba. This rich literary tradition also includes Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972), displaced to Lebanon in 1948 and assassinated by the Mossad at the age of 36. Many readers are familiar with Refaat Alareer, the poet and literature professor whose poem “If I Must Die” was circulated widely after his assassination in 2023. His colleague and close friend, Mosab Abu Toha, enters this impressive lineage with his debut collection, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear.
Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas by Karen Pinchin
Author Karen Pinchin has given us a gift. It is her perfectly paced, exquisitely written work of creative nonfiction.
The Singularity by Balsam Karam, trans. Saskia Vogel
In a coastal city, a displaced woman, having searched for her missing daughter in vain for weeks, throws herself into the ocean. Another woman, pregnant with her first child, witnesses the suicide. In the first part of the book, a spiral-like structure with the disappearance at its center documents the weeks before and after the …
The Night In Question by Susan Fletcher
Prize-winning author Susan Fletcher’s new novel is an absorbing whodunnit that also looks at—and celebrates—the passions, regrets, secrets and adventures of one woman’s extraordinary and inspiring life.
Dayspring by Anthony Oliveira
Dayspring is an immersive, mesmerizing work, one that wrenches beauty from cataclysm and finds bliss in apocalypse.
The Adversary by Michael Crummey
The Adversary by Michael Crummey is a dark, enthralling novel about love and its limitations, the corruption of power and the power of corruption.
Denison Avenue: A Novel by Christina Wong, Illustrated by Daniel Innes
Denison Avenue: A Novel by Christina Wong, illustrated by Daniel Innes is both an experience and an adventure into reading and visual art, like no other.
Home is the Lands and Rivers: A Girl Called Echo Omnibus by Katherena Vermette
This special omnibus edition of Katherena Vermette’s best-selling series features an all-new foreword by Chantal Fiola, a historical timeline, and an essay about Métis being and belonging by Brenda Macdougall.
Fordmates by Ivo Maravec
The stories in Fordmates ricochet headlong between comedy and tragedy, balancing the tedium and gruelling demands of the automotive assembly line with the workers’ gutsy attempts to preserve spirits and some semblance of sanity.
The Wish Doctor Will See You Now: The Wish Doctor by Mark E. Shupe
What if wishes you made turned out wrong, and you didn’t even know it? What if one of those bad wishes is about to ruin your life? Well then, you better make an appointment with the Wish Doctor.
