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In 1956, more than ten years before his first album, a 22-year-old Montreal poet named Leonard Cohen published a book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies. By the time he started singing he had written two novels and four collections of poetry, several of them on the Greek island of Hydra, where he lived for about seven years. His Selected Poems 1956–1968 sold some 200,000 copies in its first few months, and he refused the Governor General’s Award it won. He went on publishing books for the rest of his life, and he was still preparing one, The Flame, when he died in 2016. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1956–2022 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Leonard Cohen published two novels in his lifetime, The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966), and poetry from Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956) to Book of Longing (2006); The Flame (2018) and A Ballet of Lepers (2022) came out after his death. Start with The Favourite Game, his novel about a young Montreal poet. Below: all 13 key books in order, and how his poems and his songs connect.
Where to Start with Leonard Cohen
If you want a novel to begin with
→ The Favourite Game (1963) — a young Montreal poet growing up, close to Cohen’s own life.
If you want the poems of his first decade
→ Selected Poems 1956–1968 (1968) — the selection that made him a bestselling poet.
If you want his most daring book
→ Beautiful Losers (1966) — the 1966 experimental novel.
If you want his last words
→ The Flame (2018) — poems and notebooks he was preparing at the end of his life.
13 Leonard Cohen Books, in Order
Let Us Compare Mythologies
His first book, published in Montreal by Contact Press in 1956, when Cohen was 22, as part of the McGill Poetry Series. The poems draw on Jewish and Christian myth, love and violence, themes he would return to for the rest of his career.
The Spice-Box of Earth
His second collection and his first with McClelland & Stewart, the Toronto house that remained his Canadian publisher. Many of the poems are love poems; others draw on the Jewish tradition of his Montreal family.
The Favourite Game
His first published novel follows Lawrence Breavman, a boy from a well-off Jewish family in Montreal, from childhood to his first affairs and his first success as a poet. Cohen wrote it in London and on Hydra; it was first published by Secker & Warburg in London in 1963 and only appeared in a Canadian edition in 1970. It won the Quebec Literary Competition Prize, and Bernar Hébert filmed it in 2003.
Flowers for Hitler
A darker collection than the two before it, in which the Holocaust and political violence run through poems about private life.
Beautiful Losers
A novel in three parts set in Quebec, which weaves the story of the 17th-century Mohawk saint Catherine Tekakwitha into a love triangle between an unnamed folklorist, his wife Edith and his friend F., a separatist Member of Parliament. On publication the critic Robert Fulford called it “the most revolting book ever written in Canada”; later critics credited it with bringing postmodern fiction to Canada. It sold slowly at first and had passed three million copies by 2007.
Selected Poems 1956–1968
A selection from his first four collections with new poems, published as his singing career began. It sold around 200,000 copies in its first few months and won the Governor General’s Award for poetry, which Cohen refused.
The Energy of Slaves
Short, bare and often bitter poems that turn against the romantic image of the poet, including his own. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes them as “anti-poems”.
Death of a Lady’s Man
Poems and prose pieces about the end of a marriage, each followed by a commentary in which Cohen questions, mocks or corrects what he has just written. Its title echoes Death of a Ladies’ Man, the album he made with Phil Spector the year before.
Book of Mercy
A book of short numbered pieces in prose, written as prayers and psalms addressed to God, drawing on the language of the Psalms and Jewish liturgy. It won the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for poetry in 1985.
Stranger Music
The broadest single-volume selection of his work, covering almost forty years of poems, prose pieces from his novels and the words of his songs, printed side by side so that the lyrics can be read as poems.
Book of Longing
His first new collection in more than twenty years: 167 poems and drawings, written largely at the Zen monastery on Mount Baldy in California, where he lived in the late 1990s, and in India. It became a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, and Philip Glass set 23 of the poems to music in 2007.
The Flame
The book Cohen was working on in the last months of his life, completed after his death by the editors Robert Faggen and Alexandra Pleshoyano. It has three parts: 63 poems he selected, poems that became the lyrics of his last four albums, and entries from the notebooks he kept from his teens onwards, with his drawings, his 2011 Prince of Asturias speech and a foreword by his son Adam.
A Ballet of Lepers
His real first novel, written in 1956–57 in Montreal and rejected by publishers, printed for the first time in 2022 with fifteen early stories and the outline of a play. The novella is narrated by a solitary 35-year-old bookkeeper who takes in a violent grandfather he has never met. It was edited by Alexandra Pleshoyano.
In What Order to Read Leonard Cohen
None of the books continue from one another, so you can start anywhere. Publication order shows a clear arc, though: the lyrical young poet of the 1950s, the provocations of Flowers for Hitler and Beautiful Losers, the bare, self-mocking books of the 1970s, the prayers of Book of Mercy and the late, plain voice of Book of Longing and The Flame.
Read The Favourite Game before Beautiful Losers: the second novel is far harder, and it helps to know the first. A Ballet of Lepers was written before both, but it is best read last, as an early sketch.
A reading path
1. The Favourite Game (1963)
2. Selected Poems 1956–1968 (1968)
3. Beautiful Losers (1966)
4. Book of Longing (2006)
5. The Flame (2018)
Everything Else Leonard Cohen Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poetry
1
1 book · 1966
- 1966Parasites of Heavena short collection published the same year as Beautiful Losers
The years · 1934–2016
Quick facts about Leonard Cohen
- Known for
- Leonard Cohen is known as a Canadian poet and novelist who became one of the most admired singer-songwriters of his time, and who kept publishing poetry until the end of his life.
- 1934
- Born in Westmount, Montreal
- 1966
- Beautiful Losers
- 1968
- Refuses the Governor General’s Award
- 1996
- Ordained as a Zen monk
- 2016
- Dies in Los Angeles
- Born
- 21 September 1934, Westmount, Montreal, Quebec
- Died
- 7 November 2016, Los Angeles; buried on Mount Royal, Montreal
- Novels
- The Favourite Game (1963), Beautiful Losers (1966)
- Lived
- On the Greek island of Hydra for about seven years in the 1960s
- Declined
- Governor General’s Award for poetry, 1968
- Honours
- Companion of the Order of Canada (2003); Prince of Asturias Award for Letters (2011)
- Zen name
- Jikan (“silence”), ordained in 1996
The red mark is 1966: Beautiful Losers, the novel that made him one of the most debated writers in Canada.
How Leonard Cohen Writes: The Poet Who Became a Singer
Cohen was a published poet for more than ten years before he made a record, and he never stopped thinking of himself as a writer first. His early poems use traditional forms and the language of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian liturgy he grew up around in Montreal; love, faith, sex and cruelty sit side by side in them from the first book onwards.
In the 1960s he pushed against that early style. Flowers for Hitler brings the Holocaust into the love poem, and Beautiful Losers breaks the novel into fragments, lists, letters and prayers. In the 1970s he went the other way, stripping his poems down to a few plain lines; Death of a Lady’s Man even adds a commentary to each poem in which he argues with himself.
His late books are quieter and often funny. Book of Mercy takes the form of prayers, Book of Longing mixes short poems with his own drawings, and The Flame prints poems, finished song lyrics and notebook entries together, so you can see the same lines move from page to song.
Watch
Leonard Cohen in Conversation with Adrienne Clarkson
Adrienne Clarkson talks with a young Leonard Cohen on the CBC-TV programme Take 30 in 1966 about the sources of his poetry. From the official CBC channel.
Frequently asked questions about Leonard Cohen’s books
How many books has Leonard Cohen written?
Fourteen books of poetry and fiction are listed on this page: the 13 key books, from Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956) to A Ballet of Lepers (2022), plus the short collection Parasites of Heaven (1966). Two of the 13, The Flame and A Ballet of Lepers, were published after his death.
What are Leonard Cohen’s books in order?
Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), The Favourite Game (1963), Flowers for Hitler (1964), Beautiful Losers (1966), Selected Poems 1956–1968 (1968), The Energy of Slaves (1972), Death of a Lady’s Man (1978), Book of Mercy (1984), Stranger Music (1993), Book of Longing (2006), The Flame (2018) and A Ballet of Lepers (2022).
Where should I start with Leonard Cohen?
With The Favourite Game (1963), his first published novel, about a young Jewish poet growing up in Montreal. For the poems, start with Selected Poems 1956–1968 or the larger selection Stranger Music (1993).
What is Leonard Cohen’s most famous book?
Beautiful Losers (1966), his second novel. It sold slowly at first but had passed three million copies by 2007. Among his poetry, Selected Poems 1956–1968 was the big seller, with around 200,000 copies in its first few months.
Why was Beautiful Losers controversial?
Its sexual explicitness and fragmented structure shocked many readers in 1966; the critic Robert Fulford called it “the most revolting book ever written in Canada”, while also calling it the most interesting Canadian book of the year. Later critics have treated it as a landmark of postmodern Canadian fiction.
Did Leonard Cohen win the Governor General’s Award?
He was awarded it for Selected Poems 1956–1968, but refused it. He did accept the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Book of Mercy in 1985 and the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters in 2011.
Has The Favourite Game been made into a film?
Yes. The Quebec director Bernar Hébert adapted it as The Favourite Game in 2003. Beautiful Losers attracted film producers before publication but has never been filmed.
Are Leonard Cohen’s song lyrics in his books?
Yes, in some of them. Stranger Music (1993) prints the words of his songs beside his poems, and The Flame (2018) includes the poems that became the lyrics of his last four albums. The book Death of a Lady’s Man (1978) echoes the title of his 1977 album Death of a Ladies’ Man.
What is The Flame?
The last book Cohen worked on, published in 2018, two years after his death. It collects poems he chose himself, lyrics and notebook entries, edited by Robert Faggen and Alexandra Pleshoyano, with a foreword by his son Adam Cohen.
Is Leonard Cohen still alive?
No. He died on 7 November 2016 at his home in Los Angeles, aged 82, and was buried in a family plot on Mount Royal in Montreal, the city where he was born.
Footnotes
- Leonard Cohen — The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Leonard Cohen: bibliography — Athabasca University, Canadian Writers
- Beautiful Losers — Wikipedia
- The Flame (poetry collection) — Wikipedia
- A Ballet of Lepers — Wikipedia
- A secret chord that David played (Asturias speech) — Maud Newton, 2011
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Poetry comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers.”
— Leonard Cohen, Prince of Asturias Award acceptance speech, Oviedo (2011)
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