Hootdunnit is Owl's Nest Book's Club for those who love mysteries. We meets at the store on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

This month's book: Dreadfulwater by Thomas King

About this book:

Thumps DreadfulWater is a Cherokee ex-cop trying to make a living as a photographer in the small town of Chinook, somewhere in the northwestern United States. But he doesn’t count on snapping shots of a dead body languishing in a newly completed luxury condo resort built by the local Indian band. It’s a mystery that Thumps can’t help getting involved in, especially when he realizes the number one suspect is Stick Merchant, anti-condo protester and wayward son of Claire Merchant, head of the tribal council and DreadfulWater’s sometimes lover. Smart and savvy, blessed with a killer dry wit and a penchant for self-deprecating humour, DreadfulWater just can’t manage to shed his California cop skin. Before long, he is deeply entangled in the mystery and has his work cut out for him.

A novel that will appeal to mystery fans as well as Thomas King’s loyal audience, DreadfulWater Shows Up is a catchy, clever read.

Join us for a local author book launch!

All Isaac Barrow wants is to be left alone to pursue his supernatural research and tinker with his inventions. But when you’re the only technomancer openly practicing the craft in 1880s Halifax, trouble has a way of finding you. When a routine mechanical service call reveals the grisly handiwork of the Nightshade Cabal – an underground cult of necromancers – Barrow finds himself in a race against time to put a stop to the Cabal’s depredations before they can kill anyone else and turn them into... office machinery?

Then there’s the mystery of Emily Skye, a missing teenager with strange abilities of her own. Believing her disappearance to be connected to the Nightshade Cabal, Barrow agrees to help track down the missing girl. But even if he can find her, will Miss Skye aid him in his struggle against the Cabal? Or might she turn out to be the deadliest threat of all?

Join us for a Saturday Signing!


Follow best friends, Mae and Jae, as they learn how to stay close to their Faraway Families. Like so many children today.

 

This is a story to show that, living near or far, you are loved no matter where you are.

The YA for Adults Book Club is our store book club for adults who love YA fiction. We meet on the first monday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

About the book:

 In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend, Robby, have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things.

This is the truth. This is history.
It’s the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it.
You know what I mean.

Funny, intense, complex, and brave, Grasshopper Jungle brilliantly weaves together everything from testicle-dissolving genetically modified corn to the struggles of recession-era, small-town America in this groundbreaking coming-of-age stunner.

 

Our Wonderful Literary Society, or O.W.L.S, is our store book club for literary readers. We meet on the first Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is not membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: The Brotherhood of Book Hunters by Raphael Jerusalmy

About this book: 


The Da Vinci Code meets Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve in this erudite adventure story set at the dawn of the printed book about the outlaw poet François Villon and the power of words to change the world.

François Villon, the world's first poet of modernity, was born in Paris in 1431. He was arrested and condemned to death by hanging in 1462 and exonerated in 1463. Shortly after his release from prison, as far as history is concerned, he disappeared forever. 

In Raphaël Jerusalmy's thrilling novel, to ensure his release, Villon has accepted a shady deal offered by the Bishop of Paris at the behest of Louis XI. All Villon has to do to earn his freedom is to convince a printer and bookseller to move from Mayence to Paris, telling him that by doing so he'll be better able to circulate progressive ideas that aren't approved of in Rome. Not surprisingly, Villon's task becomes more complicated that it first seemed. With this riveting tale of plotsand counterplots involving secret organizations in Jerusalem, intrigue in France, and brigands in Italy, Raphaël Jerusalmy leaves readers with their hearts racing and their imaginations stirred.The Brotherhood of Book Hunters is an irresistible read for lovers of books, adventure, and fine writing.

Join us for a reading and signing!

A therapist creates moving portraits of five of her most memorable patients, men and women she considers psychological heroes.

Catherine Gildiner is a bestselling memoirist, a novelist, and a psychologist in private practice for twenty-five years. In Good Morning, Monster, she focuses on five patients who overcame enormous trauma--people she considers heroes. With a novelist's storytelling gift, Gildiner recounts the details of their struggles, their paths to recovery, and her own tale of growth as a therapist.

The five cases include a successful but lonely musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her and her siblings in a rural cottage; an Indigenous man who'd endured great trauma at a residential school; a young woman whose abuse at the hands of her father led to a severe personality disorder; and a glamorous workaholic whose negligent mother had greeted her each morning with "Good morning, Monster."

Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried. It will take courage to face those realities, and creativity and resourcefulness from their therapist.

Each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes humorous. It offers a behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office and explains how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.

Join us for a Saturday Signing!


From the moment children utter their first words, they are bursting with questions about the world around them and why everything is the way it is. 
Some questions are delightful, naïve, embarrassing, and sometimes nonsensical, while others can be poignant, heart-breaking, and often profound in their simplicity. 
We answer our children’s thoughts, concerns, and fears the best we can, calmly on the outside while often screaming inside our head: How do I answer that question?—Am I doing this right?—Do I even know anything?—Argh, my armpits are beginning to sweat—What was the question again?
 
Readers are invited to join author Erin Royce as she lets us eavesdrop on a young girl's anxious, yet touching questions about herself to the person she trusts the most in the world—her mother.
Parents will value and find inspiration in the loving mother's simple yet wise answers to the daughter's difficult questions. 
When read together, Mommy, Why? will give parents and children the opportunity to discuss the issues raised in the book and will also encourage children to ask their own questions.
 
 

Join us for a Sunday Signing!

Gertie the elephant says everyone on the playground should stay far away from Bunny because she's super mean. But Kitty has questions: How did Bunny become a bully? Was she born that way? Was she stung by a bullybug? Or maybe she caught the bully flu? Wait, does that mean bullying is contagious? And if it is, couldn't the other animals catch it, too? But ... then no one would play with them either, and that doesn't seem fair. Is it possible that Bunny is sorry? Should they give her a second chance?

Not your typical bullying story, Lana Button's fresh take flips the focus from the child being bullied to the one being called a bully. In cadenced rhyming text, the compassionate and insightful Kitty leads children through a series of questions that get at the core of the assumptions we make about others and how it feels to be on the other side of name-calling. Christine Battuz's expressive illustrations use tenderness and a touch of humor to complement the emotional level of the text. Altogether, this is a perfect child-level exploration of empathy. It would be an excellent choice for discussions about bullying, or more broad issues of social development. It also works for character education lessons on empathy, compassion, fairness and inclusiveness.

Hootdunnit is Owl's Nest Book's Club for those who love mysteries. We meets at the store on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

This month's book: Jewels of Paradise by Donna Leon

About this book:

Internationally praised for her Commissario Guido Brunetti series, Donna Leon’s first standalone novel features a widely different but equally compelling sleuth, Caterina Pellegrini. Caterina is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Manchester, England. Manchester, however, is no Venice. When Caterina gets word of a position back home, she jumps at the opportunity.

The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of Agostino Steffani, a baroque composer have been discovered. Deeply-connected in religious and political circles, the composer died childless; now two Venetians, descendants of his cousins, each claim inheritance. Caterina’s job is to examine any papers found in the trunks to discover Steffani’s “testamentary disposition” of the composer. But when her research takes her in unexpected directions she begins to wonder just what secrets these trunks may hold. From a masterful writer,The Jewels of Paradise is a superb novel, a gripping tale of intrigue, music, history and greed.

If you are weary of seeing life through a negative lens, if you feel empty, unfulfilled, fearful, or unhappy, if you sense there is somehow more to life, or if you think that in some way you are self-sabotaging your success. Wake Up will help you to understand that anything that you are experiencing stemmed from your own subconscious programming and that you have the power to move beyond it.

 

Join us for a reading and signing!

TAKE A STEP-BY-STEP VIEW THROUGH THE DEATH EXPERIENCE AND HOW IT MATTERS TO YOUR LIFE TGODAY

What is life?
Why are we here?
What are we supposed to do in this physical existence?
 
The Wonder of You, takes the reader on an in-depth exploration of the NDE (Near-Death Experiences) and the amazing life lessons being brought back. Through examining thousands of accounts, Lynn K. Russell offers a step-by-step explanation of the astonishing messages and beyond to the incredible wonder you are. This book is filled with research that stretches from Man’s beginnings and onwards to the future through the exciting discoveries of physics.

Now that high school is over, Randi just wants to live her quiet life in her little town, but it doesn’t feel right without her friends there. Ever the daredevils, they’ve gone to seek adventure in the capital city of Grandin, and Randi can’t help but feel left behind. Not to mention she definitely can’t stop thinking about that kiss she and Eddy shared before he left.
When Randi discovers a mysterious mark on her skin that matches an illustration in “A Handbook on Paragonhood”, she’s thrown into a world of powerful gods and ancient magic that she thought only existed in the myths. She’ll have to step out of her comfort zone—and into the dangerous streets of Grandin—to find a way to protect herself and the people she loves.

Randi’s not the only one with a secret, though, and she finds herself questioning who she can trust. Randi will have to wrestle with what it means to be a Paragon and how far she’s willing to go to do what’s right.
With the fate of the world on the line, can she live up to being one of the chosen?"

Join us for a Saturday Signing!


Although we don’t always see them, wild creatures are increasingly coming to live in cities. Like people, some creatures—such as rabbits, skunks, raccoons, or mice—find more opportunities for food and shelter in a city. But city living is full of adventures for these animals. Sammy, Wise Old Rabbit is the story of one rabbit who successfully learned to live in the city.
 
 
 

Join us for a book launch party! 

Another novel from Aurora Finalist J.M. Dover, RETURN TO ATLANTIS is the second book in the Atlantis series. This coming of age fantasy adventure continues the battle to save Atlantis from dark energy and evil forces.
 
RETURN TO ATLANTIS – YOU ARE BRAVER THAN YOU BELEIVE.
 
After two years of failing to find a way back to Atlantis, fourteen-year-old Adam Danburg wants nothing to do with the special place. Then ancient forces pull him into the fabled land because Atlantis faces annihilation again. Now dark energy comes in the form of black holes sweeping everything within their reach into dark nothingness. Conflicting prophecies, mistaken beliefs, and shifting time conspire against Adam, along with Orri, Tya, and Caileen, preventing them from saving Atlantis. Adam must discover the right path to battle the evil forces before Atlantis is swept into the black void.
 
 
 
 
 

Our Wonderful Literary Society, or O.W.L.S, is our store book club for literary readers. We meet on the first Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is not membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: The Boat People by Sharon Bala

About this book:

When the rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees reaches the shores of British Columbia, the young father is overcome with relief: he and his six-year-old son can finally put Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war behind them and begin new lives. Instead, the group is thrown into prison, with government officials and news headlines speculating that hidden among the “boat people” are members of a terrorist militia. As suspicion swirls and interrogation mounts, Mahindan fears the desperate actions he took to survive and escape Sri Lanka now jeopardize his and his son’s chances for asylum. 
            Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer Priya, who reluctantly represents the migrants; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan’s fate, The Boat People is a high-stakes novel that offers a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis. Inspired by real events, with vivid scenes that move between the eerie beauty of northern Sri Lanka and combative refugee hearings in Vancouver, where life and death decisions are made, Sharon Bala’s stunning debut is an unforgettable and necessary story for our times

The YA for Adults Book Club is our store book club for adults who love YA fiction. We meet on the first monday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: Darius the Great is not Okay by Adib Khorram

About the book:

 Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian—half, his mom’s side—and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.
 
Darius has never really fit in at home, and he’s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they’re spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city’s skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab.
 
Adib Khorram’s brilliant debut is for anyone who’s ever felt not good enough—then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.

Hootdunnit is Owl's Nest Book's Club for those who love mysteries. We meets at the store on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

This month's book: Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart

About this book:

On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires' rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell.

Li Du was an imperial librarian. Now, he is an exile. Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. All have come for a spectacle unprecedented in this remote province: an eclipse of the sun commanded by the Emperor himself.

When a Jesuit astronomer is found murdered in the home of the local magistrate, blame is hastily placed on Tibetan bandits. But Li Du suspects this was no random killing. Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary, the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and the traveling storyteller who can't keep his own story straight.

Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see the mountain pass that will take him out of China forever. He must choose whether to leave and embrace his exile, or to stay and investigate a murder that the town of Dayan seems all too willing to forget.

The YA for Adults Book Club is our store book club for adults who love YA fiction. We meet on the first monday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: Under the Radar by Judith Clark

About the book: 

One more year. That’s all Gunnar has to wait until graduation. More importantly, it’s one more year until he’ll feel safe to come out.

Gunnar has kept his sexuality a secret — only his twin sister knows he’s gay. Coming out now would make him the target of homophobic bullies at his school. But a year is a long time, especially when life starts moving at its own pace, and Gunnar meets guys he wants to date.

Set in rural Alberta, Under the Radar is the uplifting story of a teen who dreams of a life in which he can be himself.

Our Wonderful Literary Society, or O.W.L.S, is our store book club for literary readers. We meet on the first Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is not membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak

About this book:

The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance.

At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.

The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?
 
Written in powerfully inventive language and bursting with heart, BRIDGE OF CLAY is signature Zusak.

Hootdunnit is Owl's Nest Book's Club for those who love mysteries. We meets at the store on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

This month's book: Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter

About this book:

'Do you think I'm wasting your time, Lewis?'

Lewis was nobody's fool and was a man of some honesty and integrity.

'Yes, sir.'

An engaging smile crept across Morse's mouth. He thought they could get on well together...'

The death of Sylvia Kaye figured dramatically in Thursday afternoon's edition of the Oxford Mail.

By Friday evening Inspector Morse had informed the nation that the police were looking for a dangerous man - facing charges of wilful murder, sexual assault and rape.

But as the obvious leads fade into twilight and darkness, Morse becomes more and more convinced that passion holds the key...

The YA for Adults Book Club is our store book club for adults who love YA fiction. We meet on the first monday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book: Sleight by Jennifer Sommersby

About the book: 

The greatest treasure, a most dangerous magic.

Growing up in the Cinzio Traveling Players Company, Genevieve Flannery is accustomed to a life most teenagers could never imagine: daily workouts of extravagant acrobatics; wild animals for pets; and her mother, Delia, whose mind has always been tortured by visions—but whose love Geni never questions. In a world of performers who mystify and amaze on a daily basis, Delia’s ghostly hallucinations never seemed all that strange . . . until the evening Geni and her mother are performing an aerial routine they’ve done hundreds of times, and Delia falls to her death.

That night, a dark curtain in Geni’s life opens. Everything has changed.

As they reel from the tragedy, the Cinzio Players are also grappling with the circus’s new owner: a generous, mysterious man whose connection to the circus—Geni suspects—has a dark history. And with the discovery of an otherworldly inheritance and her perilous mission to protect it, Geni is suddenly stumbling into a new reality of her own, her life interrupted daily by the terrors only Delia used to see. As the visions around her grow stronger, and her magical legacy becomes even more menacing, Geni is not sure who she should trust or love. Worst of all, she’s starting to question whether she can trust her own mind.

Our Wonderful Literary Society, or O.W.L.S, is our store book club for literary readers. We meet on the first Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is not membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome.

This month's book is Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson


About this book:


 Meet Jared Martin: sixteen-year-old pot cookie dealer, smoker, drinker and son with the scariest mom ever. But Jared's the pot dealer with a heart of gold--really. Compassionate, caring, and nurturing by nature, Jared's determined to help hold his family together--whether that means supporting his dad's new family with the proceeds from his baking or caring for his elderly neighbours. But when it comes to being cared and loved, Jared knows he can't rely on his family. His only source of love and support was his flatulent pit bull Baby, but she's dead. And then there's the talking ravens and the black outs and his grandmother's perpetual suspicion that he is not human, but the son of a trickster.

Hootdunnit is Owl's Nest Book's Club for those who love mysteries. We meets at the store on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

This month's book: The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy #1) by Peter May

About this book:

Every step toward solving the case brings Scottish detective Fin Macleod closer to a dangerous confrontation with the dark events of the past that shaped--and nearly destroyed--his life.

When a grisly murder occurs on the Isle of Lewis that bears similarities to a brutal killing on mainland Scotland, Edinburgh detective and native of the Isle of Lewis Fin Macleod is dispatched to the Outer Hebrides to investigate, embarking at the same time on a voyage into his own troubled past.


As Fin reconnects with the people and places of his tortured childhood, the desolate but beautiful island and its ancient customs assert their grip on his psyche.