The National Post Bestseller List is reported weekly by a different Canadian bookstore, featuring local favourites alongside national hits. This week’s list courtesy of Flying Books.

1 Swing Time by Zadie Smith ( Hamish Hamilton) “This, Smith’s fifth novel, is the first to be written in the first person. But that too can be a way of distancing, at l east to t he reader. Who, af t er all, can see t hemselves whole? It may be significant that we never learn the narrator’s name. She has a wonderful voice – the book is infinitely quotable – but an amorphous personality, especially given the kaleidoscopic narrative she’s called upon to unify. The effect is partly intriguing, partly frustrating.” — Robert Cushman, National Post

2 Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit ( Haymarket Books)

3 The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing ( Picador)

4 The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson ( Graywolf Press)

5 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari ( Signal)

6 The Beach at Night by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein, illustrated by Mara Cerri ( Europa Editions) “Ferrante’s writing is a sort of death- defying linguistic tightrope act, walking the mysterious l i ne between what can be put into words and what is unsayable. Her unflinching pursuit of what she herself refers to as ‘ literary- truth’ is responsible for the harrowing sense of identification many readers find in her work, which is overwhelmingly on the experience of female friendship, but fundamentally on the human experience itself.” Chloe Cushman, National Post

7 Homesick for Another World: Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh ( Penguin Press) “Moshfegh’s writing isn’t for everyone; it is so wretchedly private you wonder whether it’s written for anyone else at all. But fans who’ve already flogged themselves with the author’s brutal fiction won’t be disappointed by Moshfegh’s collection.” Terra Arnone, National Post

8 Stranger Music by Leonard Cohen ( McClelland & Stewart)

9 The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis ( W. W. Norton)

10 History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund ( Harper-Collins) “History of Wolves is lyrical and beautiful. Its otherworldly winter escapism is just right for mid-season stir crazy, and a dose of crime drama in the book’s second half grounds enough for wider readability, with Fridlund’s observation on childhood, religion and family reaching a climax in the final chapters after simmering expertly through its first 150odd pages.” Terra Arnone, National Post