Women's fiction among the most-borrowed titles at these Canadian libraries in 2025

It was another busy and booky year for public libraries across Canada in 2025.

CBC Books gathered the top five fiction titles from public libraries in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Saint John and Halifax. All but one of those was written by a woman, marking another year where female authors dominated the lists.

In Toronto, the 10 most-borrowed books alone were taken out 195,000 times. Across its branches, Halifax Public Libraries had nearly 2.3 million physical items borrowed this year.

The Women by Kristin Hannah and The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny were included on every top five list in surveyed libraries across the country other than Toronto, with both featuring on all but one of the others.

The Grey Wolf is the 19th installment of the Inspector Armand Gamache series. In this case, Inspector Gamache and his son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, can trust only one another as the people surrounding them, both friend and foe, begin to act unusually.

Louise Penny is a former CBC broadcaster and journalist. She is now the author of the Inspector Armand Gamache mystery series and recipient of the 2020 Agatha Award for best contemporary novel for the 16th installment in the series, All the Devils are Here.

She collaborated with former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton to write the political thriller State of Terror. Penny was named to the Order of Canada in 2013.

The Women by Kristin Hannah is set during the Vietnam War in 1965. A young woman joins the Army Nurse Corps to follow her brother when he joins the army and ships off to Vietnam.

When the war ends and they return home, they learn how little support there really is in America for what they were doing overseas.

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Hannah is a New York Times bestselling author of 19 books, including The Nightingale and The Four Winds. The Nightingale is being made into a movie starring Dakota and Elle Fanning.

Check out the list of books here:

Edmonton Public Library:  

1. All Fours by Miranda July
2. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
4. The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves
5. A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers

Toronto Public Library:

1. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
2. The Women by Kristin Hannah
3. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
4. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
5. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Vancouver Public Library: 

1. The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
2. The Women by Kristin Hannah
3. All Fours by Miranda July
4. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
5. The Wedding People by Alison Espach

Halifax Public Library:

1. The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
2. When the World Fell Silent by Donna Jones Alward
3. The Women by Kristin Hannah
4. The Crash by Freida McFadden
5. Death and Other Inconveniences by Lesley Crewe

Saint John Free Public Library

1. The Women by Kristin Hannah
2. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
3. The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
4. The Crash by Freida McFadden
5. The Inmate by Freida McFadden