Want to get a feel for the five Canada Reads 2013 contenders? We have excerpts from all the books for you to read. Check them out below.

The book's narrator, Saul Indian Horse, looks back on his heritage and explains why he's chosen to write his life story.

Meet Hope Plett, a young woman living in Eden, Manitoba, as she falls in love with the man she would eventually marry, Roy Koop.

Discover how Mary, one of the O'Malley women from the unusual family around which Away revolves, comes to be "away" in the first place.

Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan

Read the opening pages that set the scene of this CanLit classic, describing the island of Montreal, the Laurentian Shield and where "the Ottawa River flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec."

Helen O'Mara has just lost her husband, Cal, in the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. She comes home to find a Valentine in the mail from him, posted before he headed out to the rig.