Join us for this mystery book club discussion in-person at Owl's Nest or click here to register to attend via Zoom. All are welcome! Even if you haven't read the book. :)

To join any of our book club mailing lists for updates, reminders, and direct meeting links, please email us at contact@owlsnestbooks.com

“Fans of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency may have a new hero: Detective Inspector Darko Dawson.”—The Wall Street Journal

Introducing Detective Inspector Darko Dawson: dedicated family man, rebel in the office, ace in the field—and one of the most appealing sleuths to come along in years. When we first meet Dawson, he’s been ordered by his cantankerous boss to leave behind his loving wife and young son in Ghana’s capital city to lead a murder investigation: In a shady grove outside the small town of Ketanu, a young woman—a promising medical student—has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. Dawson is fluent in Ketanu’s indigenous language, so he’s the right man for the job, but the local police are less than thrilled with an outsider’s interference. For Dawson, this sleepy corner of Ghana is rife with emotional land mines: an estranged relationship with the family he left behind twenty-five years earlier and the painful memory of his own mother’s inexplicable disappearance. Armed with remarkable insight and a healthy dose of skepticism, Dawson soon finds his cosmopolitan sensibilities clashing with age-old customs, including a disturbing practice in which teenage girls are offered to fetish priests as trokosi, or Wives of the Gods. Delving deeper into the student’s haunting death, Dawson will uncover long-buried secrets that, to his surprise, hit much too close to home.

Join us for a Saturday Signing with Alberta Author!

An Ecology of Gratitude is an inspirational and practical guide that encourages readers to slow down, pay attention and write their way to what matters. Structured as a 30-day series of anecdotes, field notes and writing prompts, author Lorraine Widmer-Carson embroiders the science of gratitude with personal stories of her lived experience, urging readers to open their eyes to wonders, revel in possibilities and move toward a better tomorrow.


Endorsement: “Widmer-Carson combines research and her own experience to explore one of our most important sources of joy, generators of compassion and coping mechanisms. An Ecology of Gratitude will motivate and energize readers to pick up a pen and start writing.” Mary Pipher, author of Women Rowing North and Letters to a Young Therapist

This event will be held in-person at Owl's Nest Books!

Bring 5min of work to share or just hang out and listen in a safe and supportive environment.

Attend in person  at Owl's Nest Books or Click here to register for virtual attendance of this Literary book club discussion. All are welcome!

To join any of our book club mailing lists for updates, reminders, and direct meeting links, please email us at contact@owlsnestbooks.com

***LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2021***

***APMA BEST ATLANTIC PUBLISHED BOOK AWARD: WINNER***

***STEPHEN LEACOCK MEADAL FOR HUMOUR: SHORTLIST***

***THOMAS RADDALL ATLANTIC FICTION AWARD: SHORTLIST***

***MARGARET AND JOHN SAVAGE FIRST BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION: SHORTLIST***

***FOREWORD INDIES HUMOUR AWARD: SILVER***

***THE GLOBE AND MAIL SUMMER'S HOTTEST READS***

***2021 RELIT AWARD: LONG SHORTLIST***

In late 2008, as the world’s economy crumbles and Barack Obama ascends to the White House, the remarkably unremarkable Milton Ontario – not to be confused with Milton, Ontario – leaves his parents’ basement in Middle-of-Nowhere, Saskatchewan, and sets forth to find fame, fortune, and love in the Euro-lite electric sexuality of Montreal; to bask in the endless twenty-something Millennial adolescence of the Plateau; to escape the infinite flatness of Saskatchewan and find his messiah – Leonard Cohen. Hilariously ironic and irreverent, in Dirty Birds, Morgan Murray generates a quest novel for the twenty-first century—a coming-of-age, rom-com, crime-farce thriller—where a hero’s greatest foe is his own crippling mediocrity as he seeks purpose in art, money, power, crime, and sleeping in all day.

Join us for a local mid-grade author launch party! All ages welcome!

Moving to a new city means Alina has to make new friends, and nothing is worse than lunch at a new school. When her grandmother visits, Alina is inspired to help her cook the delicious Afro-Indian meals she’s always loved, but a cruel note from a mysterious lunchtime bully leaves a bitter taste that even Nani’s excellent cooking can’t erase.

With an audition for Junior Chef fast approaching and Nani’s wise lessons helping her, can Alina embrace her heritage and convince her classmates that being different is a good thing?

 

Join us in-person at Owl's Nest for this reading and discussion author event!

As Canada was in the grips of the worst pandemic in a century, Canadian media struggled to tell the story. Newsrooms, already run on threadbare budgets, struggled to make broader connections that could allow their audience to better understand what was really happening, and why. Politicians and public health officials were mostly given the benefit of the doubt that what they said was true and that they acted in good faith.

This book documents each month of the first year of the pandemic and examines the issues that emerged, from racialized workers to residential care to policing. It demonstrates how politicians and uncritical media shaped the popular understanding of these issues and helped to justify the maintenance of a status quo that created the worst ravages of the crisis. Spin Doctors argues alternative ways in which Canadians should understand the big themes of the crisis and create the necessary knowledge to demand large-scale change.

Join us for a Saturday Signing with Lori Beattie and her newest guide to urban exploration.

Best-selling author Lori Beattie is back and this time she is connecting the city by bike. Pedal along the Bow River past the Peace Bridge before connecting to East Village RiverWalk and St. Patrick’s Island. Disconnect and recharge on a ride around the Glenmore Reservoir Pathway. Enjoy big sky views from Royal Oak, Panorama Hills, Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park, the Dover escarpment, Scotsman’s Hill, and Fish Creek Provincial Park. Detailed maps lead you from river pathways into neighbourhoods, through parks, and past Farmers Markets and local shops where you can fill your panniers with fresh produce, spices and ingredients from around the globe. Calgary’s Best Bike Rides has something for everyone, including Lori’s suggestions on where to find the best locally made ice cream, craft beer and bagels. Connect, discover and explore Calgary by bike on these 50 curated cycle tours and pathway pedals.

- Detailed full colour maps for every ride
- Fantastic photos featuring Calgary’s iconic, quirky and awe-inspiring sights
- Detours, destinations and suggested pit stops featured for every ride
- Afternoon ice cream pedals to full day tour de Calgary rides
- LRT start options so you can leave your car at home
- Sidebars featuring tasty pit stops, mountain biking in Calgary, geology, First Nations history, botanical gardens, winter biking, wetlands, and why biking makes us happy!

Attend this LGBTQ+ book club discussion in person at Owl's Nest or click here to register to attend via Zoom. All are welcome!

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The lives of three women—transgender and cisgender—collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in “one of the most celebrated novels of the year” (Time)

“Reading this novel is like holding a live wire in your hand.”—Vulture

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by more than twenty publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Time, Vogue, Esquire, Vulture, and Autostraddle

PEN/Hemingway Award Winner • Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Gotham Book Prize • Longlisted for The Women’s Prize • Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club Pick • New York Times Editors’ Choice

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. 

Attend this mystery book club discussion in-person at Owl's Nest or 
click here to register to attend via Zoom. All are welcome!


A New York Times bestseller | Soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment

“Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining.” —Wall Street Journal
 
“Don’t trust anyone, including the four septuagenarian sleuths in Osman’s own laugh-out-loud whodunit.” —Parade

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
A female cop with her first big case
A brutal murder
Welcome to...
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club.

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?