What kind of speaker wire should I look for?

The guage is the thickness of the cable, the lower the number the thicker. Longer runs of cable and high power system require thicker cables. 14 awg is the typical thickness for most home setups.

Unless you have a very long run of cable just go with the 14 awg.

been using up to 35' lengths of 16 gauge for over 35 years.
works fine.

Depends on your speaker impedance and length of the run. You can have a look at a table if you like, but unless your run is over 20 feet, 16 gauge should be fine for anything.

Only other thing to consider is if you are adding any ends. Some ends are easier or harder to put on larger or smaller wire. For example the ends I like from Blue Jeans Cable fit really nicely on their large 10 gauge wire. They'd work on 16 gauge, just not fit as snug. Conversely, some other ends have real trouble with big wire bundles.

If you don't want to wait or pay shipping on Monoprice (great store btw), you can also get perfectly fine generic speaker wire at Home Depot or Lowes, by the foot, in the wire section.

+1 for monoprice

i live in canada and i still buy various cables from them!

As do I.