Why thrillers brought Maggie Mac Neil back to reading — Watch Day One of Canada Reads here

CBC

17-03-2025

The great Canadian book debate is back for its 24th season! The opening round of Canada Reads kicked off March 17, 2025 at 10:05 a.m ET.
Watch Day One above or find other ways and times to tune in here.
WATCH | Canada Reads 2025 Day One Highlight:
Olympian Maggic Mac Neil on Day One of Canada Reads 2025
23 minutes ago
Duration 1:10
Championed by Olympic swimmer Maggie Mac Neil, Watch Out for Her is the first thriller on Canada Reads.
Watch Out for Her is a gripping story about privacy, surveillance and the anxieties of parenthood. In it, a mother named Sarah thinks her problems are solved when she hires a babysitter, Holly, for her six-year-old son. When Sarah sees something that she can't unsee, she uproots her family to start over. Her past follows her to this new life, raising paranoid questions of who is watching her now? And what do they want?
On the first day of Canada Reads 2025, Mac Neil argued that because a tense atmosphere can be present in any genre, thrillers are actually "really applicable and accessible to the reader."
Heartland actor Michelle Morgan, championing Emma Hooper's Etta and Otto and Russell and James, agreed that Watch Out for Her 's writing is accessible.
However, she wished the novel had pushed more boundaries in the genre.
"It was a little too accessible, a little too safe," said Morgan.
To that, Mac Neil defended Watch Out for Her by explaining that it has great potential to bring people into reading.
When Mac Neil retired from swimming last year, she hadn't read for pleasure in years. Thrillers like Watch Out for Her reinvigorated that passion.
"Hopefully, by being an easier read than some of the other books, it draws in more viewers and people to read it, who aren't necessarily strong readers or haven't enjoyed doing it in the past," she said.
"That's why it resonated with me, because that's the situation I was in when I came upon it."
The genre-talk didn't end there on Day One — thriller writer Linwood Barclay and podcaster and wellness advocate Shayla Stonechild discussed the differences between the two memoirs they decided to champion.
WATCH | Canada Reads 2025 Day One Highlight:
Linwood Barclay and Shayla Stonechild discuss memoirs
13 minutes ago
Duration 3:01
Stonechild is defending A Two-Spirit Journey by Ojibwa-Cree elder Ma-Nee Chacaby, which tells Chacaby's story growing up in a remote northern Ontario community, overcoming experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to becoming a counselor and leading Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade.
A Two-Spirit Journey is written by Chacaby in collaboration with close friend and social scientist, Mary Louisa Plummer. She worked with Chacaby, who learned English later in life and is visually impaired, to tell Chacaby's story in the most authentic possible way, drawing on academic research about Indigenous storytelling and years of friendship and mutual trust.
"It's a really good example of what reconciliation looks like and how we can collaborate with Indigenous and non-Indigenous people," said Stonechild.
While Barclay's choice, Jennie's Boy, is also a memoir, Stonechild said that she found it hard to get into.
"I just felt like after a few chapters, it felt really repetitive and I felt like I knew the story," she said.
Still, she recognized that Jennie's Boy covers a six-month period of author Wayne Johnston's life, while A Two-Spirit Journey is a story that spans 64 years of life.
For Barclay, however, the fact that Jennie's Boy only dives into a small slice of life was a major feat.
"Wayne [Johnston] has taken time, over this period in his life, to narrow that focus and to really dig into it," Barclay said. "Sometimes the best memoirs try to do a narrow focus so that you can really get a sense of that time."
The 2025 contenders are:
Here's how to tune into Canada Reads 2025:
ONLINE: CBC Books will livestream the debates at 10:05 a.m. ET on CBCBooks.ca, YouTube and CBC Gem.
The debates will be available to replay online each day. The livestream on YouTube will be available to watch outside Canada.
If you'd rather listen to the debates online, they will air live on CBC Listen. A replay will be available later each day.
ON RADIO: Canada Reads will air on CBC Radio at 10:05 a.m. in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.
It will air at 11:05 a.m. in Nunavut, the Maritimes, 1:05 p.m. in Labrador and at 1:35 p.m. in Newfoundland.
The debates will replay at 9 p.m. local time in all time zones, except in Newfoundland, where it will replay at 9:30 p.m.
ON TV: CBC TV will broadcast Canada Reads at 1 p.m. in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones. It will air at 2 p.m. in the Atlantic time zone and at 2:30 p.m in the Newfoundland time zone.
PODCAST: The episode will be posted each day after the live airing. You can download the episodes on the podcast app of your choice.