Amazon.ca Reveals Top Canadian Cities that Love to Read

Posted on July 4, 2015

SEATTLE—June 15, 2015— In celebration of the summer reading season, Amazon.ca today announced its third annual list of Canadian Cities that Love to Read. This list was compiled after gathering sales data of all Amazon.ca book sales in print and Kindle formats from April 2014 to April 2015, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents.

This year, the Top 20 Canadian Cities that Love to Read are:

• Vancouver, British Columbia
• Calgary, Alberta
• Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
• Edmonton, Alberta
• Regina, Saskatchewan
• London, Ontario
• Toronto, Ontario
• Kitchener, Ontario
• Ottawa, Ontario
• Winnipeg, Manitoba
• Burnaby, British Columbia
• Mississauga, Ontario
• Richmond, British Columbia
• Windsor, Ontario
• Gatineau, Quebec
• Surrey, British Columbia
• Markham, Ontario
• Brampton, Ontario
• Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Hamilton, Ontario

Taking a closer look at the data, Amazon.ca also found:

• Vancouver on top: Not only did Vancouver earn this year’s top spot, but it ranked number one in more than half the categories, purchasing the most cooking, travel, self-help, business and health books.
• Canadian three-peat: Saskatoon residents reigned once again purchasing the most novels written by Canadian authors, including Indian Horse (Douglas & McIntyre) by this year’s Amazon.ca First Novel Award judge, Richard Wagamese, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden (Penguin Canada) and I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (Candlewick). Rounding out the top three cities in this category were Vancouver and Calgary.
• Lightweight reading: Digital books continue to be a popular choice among Canadians, especially in Calgary, Regina and Saskatoon. Residents in these cities purchased the most eBooks for Kindle and Fire devices in the past year. Bestselling eBooks include Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Random House Trade Paperbacks), Gone Girl (Broadway Books) and The Girl on the Train (Doubleday Canada).
• Climbing the corporate ladder: The top cities focused on building business knowledge through books are Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. Popular business books purchased include How to Win Friends and Influence People (Gallery Books) and StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Gallup Press). Burnaby and Saskatoon rounded out the top five cities in this category.
• The culinary-focused west coast: The west coast continues to show a strong interest in healthy eating and gourmet cooking, with Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon and Edmonton leading in this category, purchasing cookbooks for vegan cooking, meal preparation and other recipes. The top cookbooks purchased include The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Vegan Recipes To Glow From The Inside Out (Penguin Canada), Plenty More (Appetite by Random House) and Make It Ahead: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (Clarkson Potter).

Overall, no one genre dominated this year’s list. Some of the top books purchased by Canadians included an economics book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press), a cognitive psychology book, Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think (The Guilford Press) and a physics book, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

“We love taking a look at what’s trending when it comes to the books and genres people are enjoying,” said Alexandre Gagnon, country manager for Amazon.ca. “Once again, this year’s data shows that Canadians love to read and have a broad range of interests when it comes to sitting down with a good book – from brushing up on business skills to travelling the world or getting caught up in a mystery thriller.”

For those looking to contribute to next year’s rankings or looking for a little summer reading inspiration, Amazon.ca book editors introduced their Best Books of the Year So Far lists today, which include top rated reads such as H is for Hawk (Hamish Hamilton) and Almost Famous Women: Stories (Scribner). This year’s top 25 list also features six novels by Canadian authors, including All-Day Breakfast by Adam Lewis Schroeder (Douglas & McIntyre) and SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly), as well as Etta and Otto and Russell and James (Hamish Hamilton) by Amazon.ca First Novel Award finalist Emma Hooper. Book lovers can view the full lists and find other Amazon.ca favourites at www.amazon.ca/bestbooks.