Matt's Books and Music

I’m happy this morning to introduce my fourth annual Bookish Superlatives, highlighting books that excelled in different specific categories, but which may not have been among my very favourite reads of the year. Today’s post will focus on readerly expectation, media, and style. Tomorrow’s will turn to genres, audiences, and communities.

Note: Because part of the point of this exercise is to spread the bookish love around, I may not award or even mention a book in every category to which it belongs. So if you’d prefer, you can think of these as ‘Special Achievements’ in each category.

Reputation

Best ‘Classic’ (written before 1976)

Street of Riches, by Gabrielle Roy (1955 🇨🇦)

I must admit this wasn’t a year in which I read a lot of classics, a term that speaks both to age (I use 50 years as the cut-off) and place in the literary canon. But this year the one I enjoyed the most was Gabrielle Roy’s collection of short stories about growing up in Manitoba’s francophone community, Street of Riches. While it was written seventy years ago and looks back thirty years beyond that, it felt surprisingly fresh and some of its commentary on class and race is as relevant and interesting today as it was then.

Honorable mentions: The Postman Always Rings Twice (James M. Cain, 1934); The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder, 1927); Medea (Euripides, 431 BCE)

Best Backlist Title (written 1976-2021)

The Unseen World, by Liz Moore (2016)

It’s important for me as a reader to get off the new-release treadmill and read the wonderful books released in past years too. While not my favourite book in this category, the one I wanted to highlight is Liz Moore’s The Unseen World. This is a fantastic family mystery with a vivid setting of 1980s Boston and the rise of personal computing. Like a lot of people who read it this year, it came onto my radar because of Moore’s breakout 2024 hit, The God of the Woods. But for me, this far surpassed its more famous younger sibling.

Honourable mentions: The Martian (Andy Weir, 2011); Normal People (Sally Rooney, 2018); Mariette in Ecstasy (Ron Hansen, 1991); The Silence of the Girls (Pat Barker, 2018); Leonard and Hungry Paul (Rónán Hession, 2019)

Best Debut

Ordinary Saints, by Niamh Ní Mhaileoin (2025)

I’m often conflicted with this category between be my favourite book by a debut author and a debut novel that gets me most excited about the author and their future work. Fortunately this year, both categories are the same book, Niamh Ní Mhaileoin’s Ordinary Saints (2025, to be released in North America in 2026). It was one of those books that made me feel like I was in safe hands from the first sentence, and never once let me down.

Honourable mentions: Woodworking (Emily St. James, 2025); The Magnificent Ruins (Nayantara Roy, 2024); Life Hacks for a Little Alien (Alice Franklin, 2025); The Nimbus (Robert P. Baird, 2025).

Best Sequel

The Women of Troy (Pat Barker, 2021)

It’s one thing to start a series well, it’s quite another to keep it going. Pat Barker’s series retelling the stories of the Trojan women will get a lot of attention here this year. The way this second book artfully portrays the complex intersectionality of its heroine Briseis’s status as both captive and kept woman of privilege is impeccable.

Honourable mentions: Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card, 1986); My Own Lightning (Lauren Wolk, 2022), Fifteen Dogs, by André Alexis (2015 🇨🇦)

Best Series

The Unselected Journals of Emily M. Lion, by Beth Brower (2019—)

It seems a bit sacrilegious to have anything other than Pat Barker’s series here, but in the interest of spreading the love around, I’ll choose Beth Brower’s absolutely delightful series about a young Victorian woman who moves to London to take over the household she’s inherited, and the amusing community and collection of very wonderful men she finds there. I read all eight volumes currently available over the span of just a few weeks and cannot wait for the story to continue.

Honourable mentions: Women of Troy (Pat Barker, 2018—2024); Quincunx (André Alexis (2014—2019 🇨🇦)

Readerly Expectations

Most Disappointing

Harriet Tubman, Live in Concert, by Bob the Drag Queen (2025)

In order to be ‘disappointing’, expectations have to be set pretty high. So a ‘disappointing’ book is not necessarily a bad one. It’s simply a question of whether my expectations were met. And sadly the biggest book that comes to mind is this debut by the entertainer known as Bob the Drag Queen. Here’s the thing: There’s a reason why they say to write what you know. And Bob is almost always the smartest, most ‘with it’ and engaged person in any room they’re in. So for their debut protagonist and POV character to be a bit of an ignorant fool blindly walking through the world, it was I think a bridge too far. I hope we see more from Bob as a writer; I just hope they stick closer to what they know.

(Dis)honourable mentions: Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis 1954); Ghost Mountain (Rónán Hession, 2024); The Dogs of Venice (Steven Rowley, 2025)

Least Living up to the Hype

Hungerstone, by Kat Dunn (2025)

This category has less to do with my expectations than it does with the hype machine. This is for books that were everywhere on social media but didn’t deliver for me. I came across this retelling of Carmilla set in industrial Britain in a couple ‘best of the first half of 2025’ lists, but found it to be a complete bore and very unnecessary. The problem is that it was a Sapphic retelling of a story that was already Sapphic; and a nineteenth century retelling of a story that was already set in the nineteenth century. The only new thing about it was the industrialist setting, but everything about this was so glaringly obvious. This was a retelling that only made the original shine brighter.

(Dis)honourable mentions: Water Moon (by Samantha Sotto Yambao, 2025); Hombrecito (Santiago Jose Sanchez, 2024); Universality (Natasha Brown, 2025)

Most Living up to the Hype

The Nothing Man, by Catherine Ryan Howard (2020)

On the flip side, sometimes getting caught up in the hype is very rewarding. I very rarely read thrillers because they just don’t tend to live up to their promise, so I picked this one up with a fair bit of trepidation, after hearing it praised over and over again. But yup, it absolutely lived up to the hype and even gave me the thrills the genre promises but rarely provides.

Honourable mentions: Buckeye (Patrck Ryan, 2025); The Martian (Andy Weir, 2022); Heart the Lover (Lily King, 2025)

Most Surprising

Julius Julius, by Aurora Stewart de Peña (2025 🇨🇦)

This superlative goes to a book that came out of nowhere to far exceed my expectations. I found out about when it was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Prize this year, so you may wonder why I was so surprised that it was good. But the thing is that particular prize tends to reward strange and formally inventive works that I tend not to enjoy. That this was an absolute delight was an absolute surprise.

Honourable mentions: Life Hacks for a Little Alien (Alice Franklin, 2025); Woodworking (Emily St. James, 2025)

Best Under the Radar Title

Take Two, by Danielle Hawkins (2024)

This category is for books that nobody was talking about but which deserved much better from the industry and bookish community. I found this digging deep for light-hearted recommendations in a list of best books from New Zealand. And did this ever deliver! It’s hard for what is essentially a ‘romance plus’ (or perhaps even that terribly named genre of ‘women’s fiction’) to offer something new or fresh, but I loved this story of family and showing up for the people in our lives so much.

Honourable mentions: Scorpionfish (Natalie Bakopoulos, 2020); You & Me (Tal Bauer, 2022); Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil (Oliver Darkshire, 2025)

Book My Opinion about which My Opinion Has Changed the Most

n/a

This is a spot normally reserved for either a book that I initially loved but which quickly fell in my estimation, or a book I didn’t enjoy but really hit in hindsight. But this year, I was surprised to find that my opinions were mostly the same.

Media & Writing Style

Best Narrative Voice

Olivetti, by Allie Millington (2024)

There’s nothing I love more in a book than a vivid point-of-view character and this year the one I can’t stop thinking about was my very first read of the year, Allie Millington’s Olivetti, told from the perspective of a typewriter.

Honourable mentions: Take Two (Danielle Hawkins, 2024); The Axeman’s Carnival (Catherine Chidgey, 2022); The Unselected Journals of Emily M. Lion (Beth Brower, 2019—); Ordinary Saints (Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, 2025)

Best Audiobook Narration

Genevieve Gaunt, for The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Beth Brower, 2019—)

More often than not, if I notice an audiobook narrative, it’s because it’s distracting me from the author’s work, rather than enhancing it. So it’s important to celebrate those times where it matches, or even enhances the author’s vision. My favourite this year was Genevieve Gaunt’s masterful work voicing Emma M. Lion. Because they’re told in a one-sided epistolary form, these books rely entirely on the book’s narrative voice, and Gaunt manages to bring this to life in all of the wit, charm, and cheek required.

Honourable mentions: Anna Burnett’s work in Victorian Psycho (Virginia Feito, 2025); Will Wheaton’s work in The Martian (Andy Weir, 2011); and Kristin Atherton’s work throughout Pat Barker’s Women of Troy series (2018—).

Best Graphic Novel or Comic

Here, by Richard McGuire (2014)

This is a graphic novel rendered without words, but simply follows the same location throughout centuries of human occupation. It’s absolutely brilliant.

Honourable Mentions: My Brother’s Husband (Gengoroh Tagame, 2014); Lunar New Year Love Story (Gene Luen Yang, 2024)

Funniest Book

A Night to Surrender, by Tessa Dare (2011)

There are few things that set a book apart as something really special more than a good sense of humour. The book I’ve chosen here definitely puts the comedy in ‘romantic comedy’. I laughed out loud so many times while reading this, and annoyed anyone around me by sharing what tickled me so much.

Honourable mentions: Take Two (Danielle Hawkins, 2022); Ghosts (Dolly Alderton, 2020), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1979)

Best Sense of Atmosphere, Time and/or Place

Seascraper, by Benjamin Wood (2025)

I love a good atmospheric novel, and the one that stood out far and away this year was Benjamin Wood’s Booker Prize longlisted gem Seascraper. Set in a working class coastal English village, you can smell the tidal flats and get lost in the fog on every page.

Honourable mentions: The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven (Nathaniel Miller, 2021); The Magnificent Ruins (Nayantara Roy, 2024); The Grand Banks Cafe (Georges Simenon, 1931); The Resurrectionist (A. Rae Dunlap, 2024); Fishing for the Little Pike (Juhani Karila, 2019)

Best Book in Translation

The Remembered Soldier, by Anjet Daanje (2019)

One of my bookish goals the past few years has been to read as many works in translation as I can. (This isn’t easy — a shockingly small number of novels from around the world get translated into English!) While I read some amazing ones this year, the one that stood out the most was Anjet Daanje’s novel about a Belgian soldier with severe amnesia who struggles to regain his memories following the First World War.

Honourable metions: F (Daniel Kehlmann, 2013); Perspective(s) (Laurent Binet, 2023); Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata (2015); In the Absence of Men (Philippe Besson, 2007); Strange Pictures (Uketsu, 2022)

Best Writing

Take Two, by Danielle Hawkins (2022)

This is one of those novels where the writing is the star of the show. My selection here is way off the board, since one would never expect a romantic comedy to be awarded for the quality of its prose! But, from the opening lines, I loved how this was written. The prose was simply buoyant, and its gentle touch and humour carried the reader through what was actually a pretty serious and emotionally devastating plot with ease.

Honourable mentions: Seascraper (Benjamin Wood, 2025); Ordinary Saints (Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, 2025); Heart the Lover (Lily King, 2025); Buckeye (Patrick Ryan, 2025)