Join us for an evening of reading and discussion featuring:

Flicker, by Lori Hahnel

This is How You Start to Disappear, by Astrid Blodgett

Alone on the Couch with a Gun in My Mouth, by Steve Passey

Odd One Out, by host Betty Jane Hegerat

Join us for a Saturday Signing with Alberta chapter book author!

The charming story of a young owl’s strange and disorienting journey to discover who he is and where he belongs.

When a young Great Horned Owl wakes up to find himself on the ground with a broken wing, he can’t figure out where he is, how he got there, or how to get back to the tree where he lives with his parents and older sister. Is this a test, to see if he is ready to leave the nest? Is he being punished for something? Before he knows what is happening, he is whisked away to a rescue centre, where he meets other owls who are also recovering from injuries before being released back into the wild.

Lonely, confused, and very self-conscious of the fact that he doesn’t have a name, the young owl slowly adapts to his new surroundings. He makes friends, finds his courage, heals from his injury, and realizes that identity is about more than a name that is given to you. It’s about the character that you develop, especially when you face hard times. Heartwarming, whimsical, and inspirational, An Owl without a Name is an uplifting tale for young readers.

If you wish to attend virutally, please contact the QUEEReads YYC Facebook Page for the Zoom link. All are welcome, even if you haven't read the book!

Join us for an evening of financial education with local author!

Join us for a Saturday Signing with a local kid's book author!

Marjorie has a problem.

Her magic doesn’t work. Her mother can mow the lawn with a knock of her knee. Her father can fold the laundry with a wiggle of his eyebrow. Even her baby brother can make his toys fly. But when Marjorie twitches her nose? Nothing happens at all.

Marjorie worries. If she’s not the same as the rest of her family, does she belong?

Join Marjorie as she discovers her own special brand of magic. 

Join us for our mystery book club discussion. No need to register. All are welcome!

In this tense, spellbinding thriller set over the course of a single day, a woman prepares for a party that goes dreadfully wrong—for fans of Ashley Audrain and Lisa Jewell.

Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. The neighbors all have cocktails, the catered food is exquisite—everything’s going according to plan.

But Nadine—devoted wife, loving mother, and doting daughter—finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this?

Rewind to that morning, when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But her husband is of little help to her, her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns, and her mother—only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well.

Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.

Celebrate spooky seasons with an evening of dark tales to terrify with local horror authors! 

Do you dare confront the demons lurking in the Stygian depths of the human psyche?

Step into the shadows with 24 fresh voices, each offering their own unique twist on the meaning of "Stygian". In this debut publication, you'll find yourself immersed in a diverse range of tales that explore the depths of human emotion. From dark horror and murder mysteries to surreal poetry and philosophical musings, each story is a unique journey into the unknown. Experience the vengeful poem that unleashes Dante's wild spirit, the melancholy memory of railway tracks, and the young witch who discovers the true power of flames. From the ancient past to the dystopian future, The Stygian Collection promises to take you down a dark and winding path. Where it leads? That's up to you to find out.

*There are 24 authors featured in the collection total. Holly Rhiannon and Pae Veo are the publishers but also have works featured in the anthology.*

Join us for a special Saturday Signing!

Everyone loves Mary! This beloved home cook, who Variety calls "the millennial Ina Garten," is back with a cookbook of 100 all-new recipes guaranteed to become your stress-free sidekick in the kitchen.

The kitchen is Mary's happy place, where worries melt away, a busy mind calms, and time seems to slow down. But she knows that for many people, the exact opposite is true! However you feel about mealtimes, Mary is here to help, with uncomplicated but delicious recipes, packed with tips and tricks, to produce flavorful results—every time.

It's What You Need: With chapters broken down into their main ingredient to facilitate easy searching, you'll love Mary's ideas for breakfast, veg & starch, pasta, fish, chicken, beef, pork & lamb, and, of course, sweets.

Make It Easy! It's not just the name of her award-winning TV program, it's her culinary ethos. Mary's recipes look easy because they are easy, and the ones in this book are her most straightforward yet!

Find the "Why": With notes in the margin of each recipe giving you the reason behind a certain ingredient or technique, you'll learn tips that act as building blocks for all your culinary endeavors. And with call-outs that point to recipes where you can get ahead, build fast flavor, or get more bang for your buck, home cooks of all skill levels will find something to entice.

With every recipe Mary writes, her goal is to show you that cooking for yourself, your friends, and your family doesn't have to be boring, difficult, or stressful. No matter the time of day, or day of the week, with In Mary's Kitchen, you'll find everything you need to make the kitchen your happy place too.

Join us for a Saturday signing with local author and sweary historian!

The hilarious, irreverent guide to world history you never knew you needed, featuring 366 profanity-filled tales of triumph and terror, science and stupidity, courage and cowardice

Those who cannot remember the past . . . need a history teacher who says “f*ck” a lot.

Nazis are bad. The worst kind of bad. There are no very fine people among them. If you disagree, you won’t like this book.

Still here? Cool. You are about to receive an education unlike any you’ve previously experienced. In this uproarious and informative tour from ancient times to the modern day and everything in between, James Fell, the self-proclaimed “sweary historian,” reveals a past replete with deeds both noble and despicable. Throughout the book, he provides insightful analysis of all the sh!t that went down. Behold!

• In 1927, actress Mae West was sent to jail for “corrupting the morals of youth” with her first Broadway play, titled Sex. She served the time and followed up with a play about homosexuality.

• In 1419, church reformers in Prague, vexed over their leader having been burned at the stake, defenestrated city leaders from a high window. They died, because those kinds of Czechs don’t bounce.

• If you were in the province of Shaanxi in China on January 23, 1556, then it sucked to be you. It wasn’t the biggest earthquake ever, but it was the deadliest day in history.

• In 362 B.C.E., a battle between Greek city states debilitated both sides, making the region ripe for conquering by Phillip of Macedon—aka Alex the Great’s dad—and spelling the end of Greek democracy.

• In 1343, the husband of noblewoman Jeanne de Clisson was unjustly executed by the king of France. Furious, Jeanne became a pirate, selling all her possessions to fund a fleet and exact revenge.

• During World War II, three Dutch teens used their beauty to lure Nazis into the forest with the promise of a good time, then out came the guns and BLAM! They sent them off to Nazi hell.

If reading history doesn’t make you want to swear like a mom with a red-wine hangover walking barefoot through a LEGO-filled living room, then you’re not reading the right history. Across the ages, over 100 billion humans have lived and died. Some were motivated by greed, others by generosity. Many dedicated themselves to the art of killing, while others were focused on curing. There have been grave mistakes, and moments of greatness. And that is why . . . sh!t happens. Every day.

Join us for a Sunday Siging with former Calgarian author!

When Lizzy is forced to move to the Adventist commune of Stillwater, she is sure the end times have begun. She’s not wrong.

Sixteen-year-old Lizzy is trapped, caught between her passion for science and the teachings of her Seventh-day Adventist father and Mennonite mother. But she isn’t the only one with problems: her mother, Marie, is increasingly reliant on prescription medication to recover from a car accident that might – or might not – have been deliberately caused by her husband, Daniel.

In a bid to regain his social standing and self-esteem, Daniel moves the family to an Adventist commune in BC’s Okanagan Valley, where Lizzy meets another recent arrival with secrets of his own. He helps her establish a clandestine connection to the outside world that she hopes will help her curb her tongue and retain her sanity long enough to finish high school, but her plans change when her younger brother, Zach, is threatened. Lizzy and Zach flee to Marie’s childhood home with their reluctant mother in tow. When her father arrives to take his family back to Stillwater, old resentments collide with new, forcing everyone to face a day of judgement.

Join us for a presentation with local author and historian!

An in-depth exploration of how a transportation company created a vision for a burgeoning nation and played a leading role driving immigration to the Canadian West.

Best known for its monumental achievements in transportation technology, Canadian Pacific Railway (or “CP”) was instrumental in constructing the concept—and the reality—of the country we now call Canada. In addition to building the railroad that connected the country from coast to coast, CP was also highly effective at selling the idea of a vast and rich land of opportunity and triggering a massive wave of immigration to what was dubbed the “Golden Northwest” (later the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta). No other independent corporation in the world made such a profound contribution to the creation of a national enterprise, nor outspent a national government in populating its frontiers with settlers from specifically targeted areas, often at the expense of Indigenous populations and their traditional territories.

Tracing the history of this highly influential corporation from the initial CP contract and land grant, historian David Laurence Jones explores CP’s involvement in carving out routes to the region, building towns, promoting Western Canada’s arable land and economic potential to Europeans and Americans, operating steamships, spearheading some of the largest irrigation projects in the world, and devising unique settlement schemes such as ready-made farms. Illustrated with more than four hundred archival photos and colour advertisements, New World Dreams is the most extensive history of Canadian Pacific ever published.

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. Doors open at 6:30pm for sign up and readings start at 7pm sharp. We have a limited number of reading slots so please arrive early to get your name on the list!

Join us for an evening of reading and conversation with local thriller author!

 

Jane can't have secrets. As the leading online influencer, each fraction of her life is streamed for all to watch. Social media hears what she mumbles as she sleeps; sees her recoil in unexplained fear of deep water; leers over the sponsor's logo tattooed between her shoulders. Everyone watches everyone, downvoting undesirables, exposing seditious thoughts, while endless advertising distracts them from the dust storms of their dying world. Private police watch over them with surveillance so complete that they can predict crimes before they occur.

But Jane recalls a different world, where her thoughts could be private and choices could be her own. She plans to wield her influence to make this the future.

On the largest marketing holiday of the year, she'll strike. All she needs is to keep her plans secret.

When Jane publicly spoils a fashion show for all social media to see, the show's organizer, Ray, vows to have her fired. He feels guilty for discovering a marketing technique that, while increasing sales, also manipulated shoppers to become fatally aggressive. Now, Ray just wants to accumulate enough social credit to leave the country, and his guilt, behind. The last thing the jaded marketer needs is for Jane to disrupt those plans and, worse, to then entrust him with dangerous contraband: a secret.

As Jane takes Ray from the gleaming towers of their ever-surveilled dystopia to the mysteries of the forbidden Red Zone, she draws him deeper into her secrets. They embark on her daring plan, risking summary and lethal punishment by the private police, as they struggle to keep rebellious thoughts undetected and old identities hidden. But when everything is watched, can she keep her secrets? Can he?

Persistence of Vision is speculative fiction about how social media, big data, and artificial intelligence affect our relationships with one another and with ourselves. Its central question is whether we can still make our own choices when we can no longer keep our lives private, or our thoughts secret.

Join us for a Saturday Signing with local middle grade author!

Isn’t summer vacation supposed to bring fun and adventure? For Danielle, turning thirteen in three short weeks, this summer would be the last summer of childhood as all things adult loomed with both excited and anxious anticipation. Danielle loves her family, their ranch nestled at the Eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains and her special friends, a dog named Shadow and a horse named Jessie and, of course, a chubby ginger cat with white paws named Rico. Her plans for a quiet, relaxing beginning to summer vacation change when her pesky fourteen year old cousin, Justin, goes missing and the three friends embark on a risky adventure in the wilderness to find him, leaving Rico behind to distract Danielle’s parents.

Filled with doubt, Danielle wonders if she’s been foolish to think that she could be a hero and rescue anyone, that she could ‘save the day’, that she could even stay on a horse she’d only just learned to ride. Along the way, she finds more than just her cousin. She discovers that her wheelchair no longer defines or confines her and that relying on friends when you think you’re at your lowest point is the only way to fly. Through a two day journey into unknown terrain, both physical and mental, she learns the power of leaps of faith, true listening and that not everyone is what they seem.

 

Join us for a Sunday Signing with local author and former city alderman!

"I don't know if you can teach leadership, but I know you can teach leaders how to achieve better results." Joseph P Connelly

Leadership is not about your creativity nor your popularity.

It's not about how nice you are nor how smart you are.

It's not about your attributes nor how well you delegate.

Leadership is about one thing and one thing only.

Leadership is about RESULTS.

Join us for an evening of education and discussion with one of the world's leading feminist thinkers.

Carol Gilligan’s landmark book In a Different Voice – the “little book that started a revolution” – brought women’s voices to the fore in work on the self and moral development, enabling women to be heard in their own right, and with their own integrity, for the first time. Forty years later, Gilligan returns to the subject matter of her classic book, re-examining its central arguments and concerns from the vantage point of the present. Thanks to the work that she and others have done in recent decades, it is now possible to clarify and articulate what couldn’t quite be seen or said at the time of the original publication: that the “different voice” (of care ethics), although initially heard as a “feminine” voice, is in fact a human voice; that the voice it differs from is a patriarchal voice (bound to gender binaries and hierarchies); and that where patriarchy is in force or enforced, the human voice is a voice of resistance, and care ethics is an ethics of liberation. While gender is central to the story Gilligan tells, this is not a story about gender: it is a human story. With this clarification, it becomes evident why In a Different Voice continues to resonate strongly with people’s experience and, perhaps more crucially, why the different voice is a voice for the 21st century. In a Human Voice 1 2 results filtered by: "human voice carol gilligan" Active titles

Join us for a Saturday Signing with local picture book author!

Sheldon is a turtle who lives in the deep blue sea and dances every night to get himself ready for bed. One evening, he asks his parents the age-old question: Where do babies come from? The story the parents tell is an underwater search for the perfect egg - to make a turtle just like Sheldon.

This is a beautifully illustrated book for parents to read to children ages 5 to 7, and it's designed to help children who were born through IVF understand how they were born and how deeply they are loved.

Join us for an evening of reading and discussion with local author.

Two local authors! Three books! Join us for a great big launch party!

The Gravity of Guilt by Timothy Reynolds

His cop ex-wife wants him dead, but not until after he saves their planet. Inventor, thief, father, unsuccessful husband, and possessor of the most powerful psionic mind in the solar system, Zeke Hayz has to make a choice: keep his secrets and his life, or save the planet and probably not live out the day. Decisions... decisions.

She Runs with Wolves, He Sits with Kittens by T.G. Reynolds

When laid-back Max isn't running a little map shop, he's fostering the five kittens his ex abandoned when she left. While corporate trainer Tori is trying to stay fit and quit smoking, her condo floods and she has to find a short-term place to live. Max has a basement suite available, but can two opposites get along under the same roof, especially when Max's ex threatens to return and reclaim the roof, and the rest of the house?

Weekend Temptation by Michelle Wright

Is love worth the risk? Rachel Knott is climbing the corporate ladder and has no time or inclination for romance — even rugged good looks and icy blue eyes can’t sway her. A man is the last thing she needs in her life, especially with a longtime awaited promotion on the horizon. She’s worked hard to get to this point and she cannot afford to lose her focus now. Rachael has been burned in relationships before, but really who hasn’t? Even though she’s determined to stay the course, the more they work together their passion grows and suddenly she’s tempted to give love another chance… Alex Steel is the CEO of the James Hotel, a high-end luxury establishment he inherited. In need of a social media guru, he hires the best which happens to be the company Rachel works for. Though their vision is in sync the two are challenged getting everyone else on board, and beneath it all is a desire neither can deny. The stakes are high, the sexual tension combustible, and the chance of a happily-ever-after is in sight. Will they go with their hearts and give love a chance?

Join us for an after school signing with Canadian picture book author!

A gorgeous picture book that pays homage to aviator Freddie Carmichael — the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic —with each month of the year highlighting moments from his life, the beauty of the North and the power of dreams.

When Freddie was young, he saw a plane up close for the first time when it dropped off supplies at his family’s remote bush camp. He was instantly hooked.

Freddie has flown for nearly seventy years, doing everything from supply runs to search and rescue to transporting dog teams to far-flung areas.

This book celebrates Freddie’s early dreams of flying and his later achievements. Readers move with Freddie through the year, hearing about his journey as a pilot and leader, while learning the names of the months in Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun at the same time. Art from Inuvialuit painter Audrea Loreen-Wulf perfectly captures the incredible Western Arctic as well as Freddie’s love for aviation.

Break the cycle of domestic violence with just a few words.

Join us for an evening of poetry with local author!

"You cannot have one without the other, the blue skies and the thunder. That's the way it must be." The co-existence of light and darkness has always been an intriguing idea. Join Joy Idowu on an emotional journey of acceptance and perseverance, where her biggest roadblocks were the voices in her head. 'The Trails of a Wild Sunflower' is Joy's debut poetry anthology, focused on her mental health journey, and the main experiences that impacted that journey. The book is accompanied by a soundscape album, performed by the author, creating an immersive environment tailored to mimic 'voices in your head'. Joy Idowu is a Nigerian-Canadian writer, musician, and chemist, who hopes to spread mental awareness with her words.

 

Joy Idowu is a Nigerian-Canadian poet based in Calgary. After moving to Canada with her family at a young age, she wrote to cope with the effects of culture shock; starting with rants, which were later turned into poems or songs. This is her first published collection. Outside of writing, Joy is also trained vocalist and chemist.

 

Join us for a Saturday Signing with Alberta author!

 

Pearl Zhi Ping Chen always wanted to be a person who ‘had rich life experiences'. And it seems she got her wish.

Born in China 1950, Pearl was part of the generation who grew up during the rise of the Chinese Communist Party's rule which deeply affected her young life. After having her education cut short in the Cultural Revolution, Pearl had to work even harder to improve her employment prospects. Working in a variety of roles around China, it was her hard work teaching herself English that gave her the opportunity to change her life, going from the daughter of a ‘class-enemy' to a qualified teacher. Pearl expanded her horizons, going on to not only gain employment and education in several other countries, but to also gain citizenship, for herself and her family, in two other continents, including her current home: Canada.

Follow Pearl through her extraordinary life and see how one can overcome any limits through perseverance and the support of others.

Join us for a special holiday signing with local picture book author!

A delightful Christmas story for families.

The Christmas Nisse presents a Danish Christmas tradition about the magical little Nisse.

These mischievous creatures live at the North pole with Santa. On the last night of November, they roam through the cold to find their way to your home. You know they have arrived when their little door appears. The Christmas Nisse is on a mission to create and collect Christmas Joy to make Santa's sleigh fly. How do you help the Nisse, you ask? Bring this beautiful tradition into your home and find out.