8 books to read if you loved Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

CBC

06-04-2025

Heartland actor Michelle Morgan championed Etta and Otto and Russell and James on Canada Reads 2025.
In the novel Etta and Otto and Russell and James, 82-year-old Etta decides to walk 3,232 kilometres to Halifax from her farm in Saskatchewan with little more than a rusty rifle and a talking coyote named James for company. Her early life with her husband Otto and their friend Russell are revealed in flashbacks to the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Here are eight books to read if you loved Etta and Otto and Russell and James.
The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor
Kit McNair was born Kathleen to an Irish farming family in Ontario and, a tomboy in boy's clothes, doesn't fit in with the expectations of a farmgirl set out for them in the novel The Cure for Drowning. When Rebekah, a German-Canadian's doctor's daughter comes to town, she, Kit and Kit's older brother Landon find themselves in a love triangle which tears their families apart.
The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe
The Spoon Stealer is a story about family secrets, friendship and belonging. The novel follows Emmeline, a compulsive spoon stealer that struggles to fit into life on her family's rural Nova Scotian farm. Struck by a family crisis during the First World War, Emmeline flees to England to start a new life with her best friend, a small white dog named Vera. When she decides to write her memoirs, secrets are uncovered and friendships are formed as Emmeline learns more about herself and the world she lives in.
The Spoon Stealer won the Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and was longlisted for Canada Reads 2022.
Lesley Crewe is a Nova Scotia columnist, screenwriter and author of several novels. Her other books include Beholden, Mary, Mary, Amazing Grace, Chloe Sparrow, Kin, Relative Happiness, which has been adapted into a feature film, and The Spoon Stealer.
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
The Sleeping Car Porter tells the story of Baxter, a Black man in 1929 who works as a sleeping car porter on a train that travels across the country. He smiles and tries to be invisible to the passengers, but what he really wants is to save up and go to dentistry school. On one particular trip out west, the train is stalled and Baxter finds a naughty postcard of two gay men. The postcard reawakens his memories and longings and puts his job in jeopardy.
Suzette Mayr is a poet and novelist based in Calgary. She is the author of the novels Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall, Monoceros, Moon Honey, The Widows and Venous Hum. Monoceros won the ReLit Award, the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize and made the 2011 Giller Prize longlist.
Natural Order by Brian Francis
In Natural Order, Joyce Sparks lies in the bed at Chestnut Park Nursing Home and meets a new volunteer who reminds her of her estranged son. She's forced to reckon with the terrible choices she made as a mother and hopes to give him the grace she regrets not giving to her son.
Brian Francis is a writer and columnist for The Next Chapter. His first novel, Fruit, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2009. He is also the author of the novel Natural Order and his first YA novel, Break in Case of Emergency, was a finalist for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text. His memoir Missed Connections was a finalist for the 2022 Trillium Book Award.
The Riveter by Jack Wang
The Riveter follows a Chinese Canadian man named Josiah Chang who is a soldier during the Second World War. Buoyed by his love for Poppy, a singer who works with him in the shipyard, Josiah is determined to survive the battlefields and make it back home — but finds himself fighting injustice on all fronts.
Jack Wang is a N.Y.-based writer and professor originally from Vancouver. He teaches in the department of writing at Ithaca College and his writing has appeared in publications such as Joyland Magazine, The New Quarterly and Fiddlehead. Wang's debut short story collection, We Two Alone was longlisted for Canada Reads 2022, shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award.
When the government of Newfoundland wants to resettle the small island community of Sweetland, all the residents are on board — except for 69-year-old former fisherman Moses Sweetland. He refuses to go, and compromises his relationships with everyone he knows and loves. He realizes the only way for everyone to get what they want is to fake his own death. What unfolds is a mesmerizing tale of survival, passion and the enduring hold of the place we call home.
Michael Crummey is a poet and novelist from Newfoundland and Labrador. He is also the author of the novels The Innocents, Sweetland and Galore and the poetry collections Arguments with Gravity and Passengers. Two of Crummey's novels have been shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction — Sweetland in 2014 and Galore in 2009. The Innocents was shortlisted for the 2019 Giller Prize, the 2019 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.
Reproduction by Ian Williams
In Reproduction, Felicia and her teenage son Army move into a basement apartment and bond with the house's owner and his two children. But strange gifts from Army's wealthy, absent father begin to arrive at their doorstep, inviting new tensions into the makeshift family's lives.
Ian Williams is the author of seven books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His novel Reproduction won the 2019 Giller Prize. He is a professor of English at the University of Toronto, director of the creative writing program, and academic advisor for the Massey College William Southam Journalism Fellowship. His most recent book is the nonfiction title What I Mean to Say, which was also the 2024 CBC Massey Lectures.
Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant
In Come, Thou Tortoise, Audrey (a.k.a. Oddly) Flowers has to leave her tortoise Winnifred behind in Orgeon when her she learns that her father is in a coma. She must get over her fear of flying to get to Newfoundland and is curious to learn about who her father really was. When she disarms an Air Marshall, we learn that there's more to her than meets the eye, and she sets off on an adventure to get back to Winnifred.
Jessica Grant is a Newfoundland writer. She is also the author of Making Light of Tragedy, a short story collection. She is a member of Newfoundland's Burning Rock Collective.