Canongate Books

Canongate Books Publisher. Always independent. And twice we’ve won Publisher of the Year.

Canongate is an independent publisher: since 1973 we’ve worked to unearth and amplify the most vital, innovative voices we can find, wherever they come from, and we’ve published all kinds of books – thoughtful, upsetting, gripping, beatific, vulgar, chaste, unrepentant, life-changing . . . Along the way there have been landmarks of fiction – including Alasdair Gray’s masterpiece Lanark, and Yann M

artel’s Life of Pi, the best-ever-selling Booker winner – and non-fiction too. We’ve published an American president and a Guantanamo detainee; we’ve campaigned for causes we believe in and fought court cases to get our authors heard. We’re still independent, and we’re as committed to unorthodox and innovative publishing as ever.

Happy Independent Bookshop Week! To celebrate, Canongate went on a wee scavenger hunt to find our best books in our favo...
19/06/2026

Happy Independent Bookshop Week!

To celebrate, Canongate went on a wee scavenger hunt to find our best books in our favourite Indies 📚

What is your favourite independent bookshop?
Comment below👇

10/06/2026

Join us as we follow the journey of Matt Haig’s new book, The Midnight Train, from printer to bookshop to instant bestseller!

We are delighted that The Midnight Train is a Sunday Times bestseller - thank you so much to everyone who has helped make this happen, in particular all the amazing booksellers and readers. Please keep sharing your reviews, we love seeing them!

Here’s just one of the reader reviews that have come in: ‘Matt has this uncanny, gentle way to reach inside your chest and rearrange your soul. With The Midnight Train, he takes us on another journey, this time one through life after death. But just like his previous work, it’s not really a book about dying. It’s a book about living.’

Last week we hosted a special brunch to celebrate HEART THE LOVER with Lily King - it was lovely to hear talk about the...
08/06/2026

Last week we hosted a special brunch to celebrate HEART THE LOVER with Lily King - it was lovely to hear talk about the process of writing this beautiful novel over tea and coffee, along with some beautiful book biscuits!

Thank you to all the book influencers who have shown their support for HEART THE LOVER and for loving this book as much as we do - we are so grateful to all of you 🧡

We’re so thrilled to share that Stuart Gillespie won the Investigative Food Writer Award 2026 last night for Food Fight...
04/06/2026

We’re so thrilled to share that Stuart Gillespie won the Investigative Food Writer Award 2026 last night for Food Fight! Huge congratulations to Stuart.

Food is life but our food system is killing us. Both unflinching exposé and revolutionary call to arms, Food Fight maps a way towards a new system that gives us hope for a future of global health and justice.

‘Scholarly, literate and deeply moving, this isn’t just a good read, it’s an essential reference for anyone hoping to understand the food system, why it’s broken and how we might imagine fixing it’ CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN

Copies are available now in your favourite local bookshop, & online (link in our bio)

Happy publication day to these lovely new books!LIFE CYCLE OF A MOTH is a visceral, bold and devastating debut novel exp...
04/06/2026

Happy publication day to these lovely new books!

LIFE CYCLE OF A MOTH is a visceral, bold and devastating debut novel exploring male violence and maternal love, and what it means to create a space of refuge 🦊

THE FATHERS is a hilarious and heart-breaking account of fatherhood, marriage, fertility, parenting, grief, class and masculinity by John Niven 🧡

The fifth instalment in the thrilling Raven and Fisher series by Ambrose Parry, THE DEATH OF SHAME explores the exploitation of women in the Victorian era 🐍

Set over two sun-drenched Italian summers, NYMPH by debut novelist Sofia Montrone is a gorgeous coming-of-age story which revels in the awkward lows and exuberant highs of girlhood. It’s been described as Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet meets Call Me By Your Name ⛱️ .barrel

THE LONELY CITY is presented in a beautiful 10th-anniversary hardback edition of the dazzling, taboo-breaking work that helped define contemporary hybrid non-fiction and established Olivia Laing as one of its essential voices 🏙️

Available at your local bookshop or at the link in bio.

This is a standout Sunday for us, with Heart the Lover by Lily King back in the Sunday Times Bestseller List for a third...
31/05/2026

This is a standout Sunday for us, with Heart the Lover by Lily King back in the Sunday Times Bestseller List for a third week! We can't wait for Lily to land with us tomorrow for her UK book tour, hot from a packed schedule of events across America and Australia, with Heart the Lover just named International Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards and a Good Books Reader Favourite!

We are looking forward to see lots of you at the sold out events here over the next few days, there are just a few spaces left and if you want to join us!

Let us know in the comments if you are coming along 🧡🩷🧡

Congratulations to RAISING HARE and who celebrate 1 full year in the Sunday Times Bestseller List this week! We are so ...
31/05/2026

Congratulations to RAISING HARE and who celebrate 1 full year in the Sunday Times Bestseller List this week!

We are so proud that this wonderful book has been recognised and highlighted by critics and awards, but beyond that it is truly amazing to see how many readers have taken it into their hearts and passed it on to others. This is an extraordinary achievement for a debut non-fiction book about the natural world, thank you for all your support of this story and what it stands for. 

 

We are absolutely thrilled that The Midnight Train by Matt Haig has become an instant Sunday Times bestseller. The story...
31/05/2026

We are absolutely thrilled that The Midnight Train by Matt Haig has become an instant Sunday Times bestseller. The story of love and second chances from the world of The Midnight Library has been capturing readers' hearts up and down the country. Have you read it yet? Don't miss The Midnight Train!

29/05/2026

We are thrilled to reveal the cover for the glorious new children’s edition of Chloe Dalton’s prize-winning bestseller, Raising Hare. This specially-adapted illustrated edition for a new generation of readers will be released in September and contains beautiful new illustrations by Denise Nestor, adapted text, hare fact files and a postscript from Michael Morpurgo.

Pre-order from the link in bio.

One winter’s day, Chloe Dalton went for a countryside walk and discovered a newborn baby hare – no bigger than her hand – chased by a dog and separated from its mother.

Worried for its safety, Chloe took the tiny hare home and learned how to feed and care for it . . . and an extraordinary friendship began.

This is the true tale of how Chloe and the hare, with its drumming paws and distinctive charm, lived alongside each other until the time came for it to return to the wild.

But when the hare is finally ready to jump over the garden wall, will Chloe ever see it again?

Happy publication day to Ruth Ozeki ! THE TYPING LADY, the debut short story collection from the winner is out today an...
28/05/2026

Happy publication day to Ruth Ozeki ! THE TYPING LADY, the debut short story collection from the winner is out today and available in all good bookshops & online – link in our bio!

Exploring childhood ambition, youthful desire, midlife reinvention and the unsparing clarity of old age, Ozeki brings us eleven richly imagined stories of characters standing at life’s thresholds. Spanning eras and geographies, it is an electrifying meditation on the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we abandon and the stories we become. Threaded with the tactile ephemera of writing - typewriters, letters, manuscripts and disappearing ink - the book reveals how we record ourselves in language, and how language, over time, records us in return.

‘Delightful, moving, and profound, The Typing Lady is a book of love stories of every kind. It is a book of great treasures’
LILY KING

‘I love this richly imagined and deftly crafted first short story collection’
MADELEINE FEENY, The Bookseller

‘An enchanting collection, full of wit, originality, warmth and intelligence. Ruth Ozeki is a brilliant writer’
MARY ANN SIEGHART

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