2023 Vancouver Writers Fest

The Lost Supper

Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past

By: Taras Grescoe
Narrated by: Tim Fannon
Length: 13 hours 1 minute

The world can't sustain the way we eat today. Whether it’s ultra-processed oils, factoryfarmed meat, or monoculture wheat, industrial agriculture has increasingly dire consequences for the vibrancy of our plates, health, and planet. While some look to high tech solutions, like
lab-grown meat or transgenic produce, Taras Grescoe argues that the... Read more

On Browsing

By: Jason Guriel
Narrated by: Tom Lute
Length: 3 hours 4 minutes

A defense of the dying art of losing an afternoon—and gaining new appreciation—amidst the bins and shelves of bricks-and-mortar shops.Written during the pandemic, when the world was marooned at home and consigned to scrolling screens, On Browsing’s essays chronicle what we’ve lost through online shopping, streaming, and the relentless... Read more

All Things Move

Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel

By: Jeannie Marshall
Narrated by: Fiona Hyatt
Length: 4 hours 28 minutes

A deeply personal search for meaning in Michelangelo’s frescoes—and an impassioned defence of the role of art in a fractured age. What do we hope to get out of seeing a famous piece of art? Jeannie Marshall asked that question of herself when she started visiting the Sistine Chapel frescoes. She wanted to understand their meaning and... Read more

Not Too Late

Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

By: various authors
Narrated by: various narrators, Erin deWard, Ramón de Ocampo, Patryce Williams, Robin Miles, Katherine Littrell, Kyla Garcia, Soneela Nankani, Deanna Anthony, Hillary Huber, Steven Jay Cohen, Vikas Adam & Jenny Rich
Length: 6 hours 38 minutes

An energizing case for hope about the climate, from Rebecca Solnit, climate activist Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and a chorus of voices calling on us to rise to the moment.Not Too Late brings strong climate voices from around the world to address the political, scientific, social, and emotional dimensions of the most urgent issue human beings have... Read more

Breaking and Entering

By: Don Gillmor
Narrated by: Karie Richards
Length: 8 hours 38 minutes

During the hottest summer on record, Bea's dangerous new hobby puts everyone's sense of security to the test.Forty-nine and sweating through the hottest summer on record, Beatrice Billings is rudderless: her marriage is stale, her son communicates solely through cryptic text messages, her mother has dementia, and she conducts endless... Read more

The Vaster Wilds

A Novel

By: Lauren Groff
Narrated by: January LaVoy
Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

“Lauren Groff sends us back to the 17th century, to a nascent English fort in the winter somewhere along the North Atlantic Coast beset with starvation and any number of deathly diseases. As the novel opens our protagonist, a young woman who is escaping this fort with nothing save the clothes on her back, a hatchet, a knife, and a metal cup,... Read more

Truth Telling

Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada

By: Michelle Good
Narrated by: Megan Tooley
Length: 4 hours 18 minutes

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER High Plains Book AwardFINALIST for the Writers’ Trust Balsillie Prize for Public PolicyFINALIST for the Indigenous Voices AwardLonglisted for the First Nation Communities READA bold, provocative collection of essays exploring the historical and contemporary Indigenous experience in Canada.With authority and insight,... Read more

Everyone Here Is Lying

A Novel

By: Shari Lapena
Narrated by: January LaVoy
Length: 9 hours 28 minutes

“A nine-year-old child is missing – and everyone is lying – or are they? There are many lies and many secrets in the small town of Stanhope. Some are discovered right away, and others come out slowly as the story is told. Shari Lapena once again owns the crown of queen of suspense as you will never see this ending coming. Read more

Crook Manifesto

A Novel

By: Colson Whitehead
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

“Colson Whithead is a brilliant novelist, writing with verve, and a sense of fun. Read more

The Marigold

By: Andrew F. Sullivan
Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
Length: 10 hours 40 minutes

“This impressively bleak vision of the near future is as grotesquely amusing as it is grim.” ― Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

 “A gripping tour-de-force torn from tomorrow’s headlines.” ― David Demchuk, author of Red X and The Bone Mother

“A bold dystopian novel that captivates with its dread and depth. The Marigold is unhinged literary horror... Read more

Where The Water Takes Us

By: Alan Barillaro
Narrated by: Eunice Wong
Length: 3 hours 22 minutes

Ava’s mom is about to have twins, and the pregnancy isn’t going well. All Ava wants to do is stay by her mother’s side, but instead, she is sent away to stay with her grandparents. Normally, spending time at the lake with Nonna and Nonno is wonderful. But everything is different now. While her mom’s hospital visits are getting serious back home,... Read more

A Safe Girl to Love

By: Casey Plett
Narrated by: Casey Plett
Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

A new edition of the acclaimed debut story collection by two-time Lambda Literary Award winner Casey Plett. From the author of Little Fish (Amazon First Novel Award Winner, 2019) and A Dream of a Woman comes eleven unique short stories featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love in settings ranging from a... Read more

Sunset and Jericho

A Wakeland Novel

The Wakeland Series: Book #4

By: Sam Wiebe
Narrated by: Donald Corren
Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

The fourth thrilling installment of the Wakeland detective series, exploring the depths of Vancouver’s criminal underworld.The mayor’s brother is missing. A transit cop lies beaten and blinded, her service weapon stolen. A new series of graffiti tags are appearing, linked to an underground group calling themselves The Death of Kings. Class... Read more

Silver Nitrate

By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Narrated by: Gisela Chípe
Length: 13 hours 3 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film—and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.

“No one punctures the skin of reality to reveal the lurking, sinister magic beneath... Read more

Not That Kind of Place

By: Michael Melgaard
Narrated by: Nick Mondelli
Length: 6 hours 2 minutes

In May 1997, eighteen-year-old Laura McPherson left her house for a run and didn’t return. Twenty years later, a reporter arrives in the small town of Griffiths to write an article about the unsolved murder of Laura McPherson. He is the most recent in a long line of journalists, podcasters, and amateur sleuths seeking new insights into what... Read more

The Sleeping Car Porter

By: Suzette Mayr
Narrated by: Chris McPherson
Length: 6 hours 22 minutes

WINNER OF THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE PUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 20 LITERARY FICTION BOOKS OF 2022 OPRAH DAILY: BOOKS TO READ BY THE FIRE THE GLOBE 100: THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 CBC BOOKS: THE BEST CANADIAN FICTION OF 2022 When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of... Read more

On Writing and Failure

Or, the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer

By: Stephen Marche
Narrated by: Stephen Marche
Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

Writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it. Failure is a topic discussed in every creative writing department in the world, but this is the book every beginning writer should have on their shelf to prepare them. Less a guide to writing and more a guide to what you need to continue... Read more

Wannabe

Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me

By: Aisha Harris
Narrated by: Aisha Harris
Length: 7 hours 38 minutes

“I have loved Aisha Harris since first hearing her on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, and I am thrilled to report that this collection of essays slaps. Her insight, humor, and writing prowess show through as she discusses everything from the state of movies today to the enduring power of Stevie Wonder to boy bands. Perfect for reading by the beach... Read more

HUGE

A novel

By: Brent Butt
Narrated by: Brent Butt
Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

AN INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The award-winning screenwriter and International Emmy nominee is now a literary success with this unexpectedly dark and twisted thriller.

It's 1994, and three stand-up comedians have embarked on a tour of  smaller communities across a remote stretch of rural countryside. Dale is a forty-something comic from... Read more

Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart

A Memoir

By: Jen Sookfong Lee
Narrated by: Jen Sookfong Lee
Length: 8 hours 16 minutes

Finalist for the 2024 Forest of Reading Evergreen Book Award and the City of Vancouver Book Award.
Named a Best Book of 2023 by the Globe and Mail and Apple Books Canada
A TODAY Show Recommended Read

This beautifully intimate memoir-in-pieces uses one woman's life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity,... Read more