CBC Radio’s Canada Reads 2019 contest was billed as the “one book to move Canadians.” In the end a Holocaust memoir penned by a 90-year-old Auschwitz survivor was the book that won the annual battle of the books.

Max Eisen’s memoir By Chance Alone, beat the odds and the heavily-favoured memoir Homes, A Refugee Story by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah with Winnie Yeung.

Published by HarperCollins in 2016, the book garnered national attention the following year as a finalist for the prestigious RBC Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction.

READ: EISEN’S HOLOCAUST MEMOIR WINS PRESTIGIOUS BOOK CONTEST

The book was defended on air by Ziya Tong, former host of Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet.