Leuchtturm Free Embossing Event!

Looking for a perfect personalized gift, or just need a new notebook? Stop by the store on August 9th! From 11am to 4pm, when you buy a Leuchtterm notebook, you can have it embossed for free!

Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren Double Feature

Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren Double Feature

Hosted by Rachel Weldon

7:00 PM - 8:30 PM

PERFECT BOOKS

Join these two prolific Book*hug authors, both finalists for The Big Other Book Award for Fiction, for an evening celebrating their latest books!

Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren read from their recent novels: These Songs I Know By Heart and Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim, and converse on the intersections between literature and performance making, and the personal and political. In writing that speaks to the here and now, two protagonists, in very different ways, seek connection as an antidote for hopelessness.

-Erin Brubacher, These Songs I Know By Heart (Book*hug Press): Seeking and searching; making art; making new friends; getting divorced; falling in love; becoming a stepparent; surviving miscarriage; enduring the pandemic; valuing lakes, lilies, and mosses; and celebrating the quiet moments between people. A novel about living inside the unknowing: surrendering control and finding joy in the free fall of it all... It’s about love. 

“This book left me feeling less alone.” – Aimee Wall, author of We, Jane

-Jacob Wren, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (Book*hug Press): In these pages, real-world politics mingle with profoundly inventive fabulations. This is an anti-war novel unlike any other, an intricate study of our complicity in violent global systems and a celebration of the hope that underpins the resistance against them.

“A knowing knot of courage and its opposite, and a defiant work of desperate grace.” —Eugene Lim, author of Search History

D.M. Bradford presents Ring of Dust

Governor General and Griffin finalist and A.M. Klein award-winning poet and translator D.M. Bradford comes to Perfect Books to discuss their latest translation, Ring of Dust (Brick Books) by Louise Marios, with local writer Manahil Bandukwala.

This book is past and present at war with each other; it's also the future emerging from the page-by-page bout, all born anew in an exuberant translation by D.M. Bradford.

Darby Minott Bradford is a poet and translator. They are the author of the hybrid poetry collection Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021), which won the A.M. Klein QWF Prize for Poetry, and was a finalist for, among others, the Griffin Poetry Prize and Governor General Literary Awards. Bradford’s first translation, House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson (Brick Books, 2023), received the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award and John Glassco Translation Prize, and was shortlisted for the Governor General Literary Award for Translation. Their most recent book of poetry, Bottom Rail on Top, was a Raymond Souster Award finalist. Bradford lives and works in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal) on the unceded territory of the Kanien’kehá꞉ka Nation.

Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist based in Mississauga and Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of MONUMENT (Brick Books, 2022), which was shortlisted for the 2023 Gerald Lampert Award, and Heliotropia (Brick Books, 2024) and was selected as a Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Star in 2023.

Pride Poetry Reading

Tuesday, August 19th, 6:30 pm, FREE
The Great Canadian Theatre Company (2nd floor mezzanine), 1233 Wellington St. W

Hosted by Ben Ladouceur and introduced by Ottawa EN-language Poet Laureate David O'Meara. Join us for a memorable night of readings with PRIDE workshop participants and three distinguished poets Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, Sanita Fejzić & Kevin Shaw. In partnership with the Great Canadian Theatre Co.

There will be snacks!
Cash bar for beer and wine.

About the poets:

Ben Ladouceur (host) is an author living on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation (Ottawa). His first book, Otter, was selected as a best book of 2015 by the National Post, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, and awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award; his second book, Mad Long Emotion, was awarded the Archibald Lampman Prize. He is the recipient of the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for emerging LGBT+ writers, and a National Magazine Award for Poetry. His short fiction has been featured in the Journey Prize Anthology and awarded the Thomas Morton Prize. His debut novel, I Remember Lights, was published by Book*hug Press in April 2025.

Kimberly Quiogue Andrews (she/they) is a Filipinx-American poet and literary critic. She is the author of BETWEEN (2018, Finishing Line Press), winner of the New Women’s Voices award, and A Brief History of Fruit (2020, University of Akron Press), winner of the Akron Prize for poetry. Her scholarly monograph, The Academic Avant-Garde, is out now with Johns Hopkins University Press. Her critical work has won the Ralph Cohen Prize from New Literary History and a development grant from the American Council of Learned Societies.

Sanita Fejzić’s first poetry collection, Refugee Mouth, was published by Frontenac House in 2025, a month after her dramatic comedy, Blissful State of Surrender, was launched by Playwrights Canada Press. Sanita’s debut novella, Psychomachia, was shortlisted for the 2016 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest and the 2017 Canada ReLit Awards. Sanita has published poetry and short stories in magazines across the country; she has won, and been nominated for, several awards including the CBC Poetry and CBC Nonfiction prizes, among others.

Kevin Shaw’s poems have appeared in The Malahat Review, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Grain, and elsewhere. He won Arc’s Poem of the Year award and the Grand Prize in the PRISM international Poetry Contest. His essays have been published in magazines such as The New Quarterly and The Literary Review of Canada, broadcast on CBC radio, and included in The Best Canadian Essays anthology. His debut poetry collection, Smaller Hours, was published by icehouse poetry (Goose Lane Editions).

Walk Your Way Fit Book Signing

Don't miss the opportunity to chat with Ottawa's own fitness expert Sarah Zahab about her book, Walk Your Way Fit: Your Guide to Better Health, Wellness, and Vitality. Sarah Zahab is a registered kinesiologist, clinical exercise physiologist, and group fitness instructor with over 25 years of full-time fitness industry experience. Zahab is the owner of Continuum Fitness & Movement Performance, a multidisciplinary clinic in Ottawa that has assisted 12 athletes in successfully participating in the Olympic Games.

In Walk Your Way Fit, she details the most efficient, effective, and enjoyable ways to use walking as a tool to improve your fitness and boost longevity. You'll discover how walking benefits the body on the physiological level and how to improve your walking workouts and walking speeds, no matter your fitness level.

Susan Aglukark at Ottawa Writers Festival

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Susan Aglukark, in partnership with the Ottawa Public Library and Library and Archives Canada.

Kihiani is the uplifting story of an Inuk artist’s journey to healing and self-discovery. Born in Fort Churchill, Manitoba, but raised in Arviat, a predominantly Inuit community on the western edges of Hudson Bay, Susan Aglukark and her six siblings grew up in a humble but loving home. But while living in Rankin Inlet, when she was eight years old, Susan’s life was disrupted by a life-changing event, a distinct separation that created a schism inside her for many years and from which she continues to heal.

With book sales by Perfect Books. This is a free event. Register here!

Heather O'Neill and Arizona O'Neill at Ottawa Writers Festival

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Heather O'Neill and Arizona O'Neill together to celebrate Valentine in Montreal!

This is the unforgettable story of Valentine, a lonely orphan working in a depanneur at a Montreal metro station, who spots her look-alike. As Valentine follows this seeming twin onto the subway and out into the city, her world is changed—she meets gangsters, composers, ballet dancers, and a cricket playing a mournful tune, and she experiences the city in all its teeming energy.

Valentine in Montreal is the playful, moving, and surprising story of a young woman who finds connection and the courage to break free of what has been holding her back. It’s also a celebration of Montreal and its artistry and vibrancy, both above and below ground. Illustrations by graphic artist Arizona O’Neill run throughout.

With book sales by Perfect Books. More details and tickets here!

Karin Wells, Women Who Woke Up the Law

We are excited to welcome award-winning author, CBC radio documentarian, and lawyer Karin Wells to the store for the launch of Women Who Woke Up the Law: Inside the Cases the Changed Women’s Rights in Canada (Second Story Press). 

From the award-winning author of The Abortion Caravan and More Than a Footnote, Karin Wells once again pulls us into the lives--and this time, the legal trials--of a group of women integral to the advancement of women's rights in Canada. Eliza Campbell, Chantale Daigle, Jeannette Corbiere Lavell. These Women Who Woke Up the Law often had no idea what they were facing in the courts, or the price they would have to pay. Some never saw justice themselves, but they left a legal legacy. Their bold determination is something we need now more than ever to guard the hard-won gains in women's rights. 

Jack Stilborn, The Tyranny of Good Intentions

Join us for the launch of public-servant-turned-writer Jack Stilborn’s novel, The Tyranny of Good Intentions!

Warm and witty, The Tyranny of Good Intentions captures central challenges of politics: it involves people, and the people need to agree about decisions. It’s a story about second chances, the complexities of democracy at its most grassroots level, and finding hope in life’s unexpected detours - even if that detour leads straight to the president’s chair.

LiterAsian Presents...From the Margins to the Centre: Asian Writers Reclaim the Page

We are so excited to welcome these three fantastic authors to Perfect Books for an event presented by LiterAsian! From the Margins to the Centre: Asian Writers Reclaim the Page, moderated by local favorite Wayne Ng!

About the writers:

Jinwoo Park is a Korean Canadian writer based in Montreal. He completed a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Oxford, and currently works as a marketer in the tech industry. In 2021, he won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award. Oxford Soju Club is his first novel. Oxford Soju Club weaves a tale of how immigrants in the Korean diaspora are forced to create identities to survive, and how in the end, they must shed those masks and seek their true selves.

Rachel Phan is a Chinese Canadian author who was born and raised in a small town in Southern Ontario, where she was one of only two racialized people in her class. A graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program, she’s shared her stories on CBC, HuffPost, the National Post and Maclean’s. She now lives in Toronto, ON. Her memoir, Restaurant Kid, is a Canadian bestseller. A warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach.

Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio is a Filipina-Canadian author, speaker and school board consultant who builds bridges between educators and Filipino families through her initiative, Filipino Talks. After completing her master’s degree in Immigration and Settlement Studies, she graduated from the Humber School for Writers and completed a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She was a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award and has been published in various anthologies. She lives in Toronto, ON, where she is writing her second novel. Her novel Reuniting with Strangers was a 2024 Canada Reads Finalist. Inspired by the work of Souvankham Thammavongsa, Catherine Hernandez and Wayson Choy, this unforgettable novel follows the reunification of Filipino caregiver families over one Canadian winter—and the mysterious progress of Monolith, who appears and disappears in their lives.

Wayne Ng was born in downtown Toronto to Chinese immigrants who fed him a steady diet of bitter melons and kung fu movies. Ng works as a school social worker in Ottawa but lives to write, travel, eat and play, preferably all at the same time. He is an award-winning author and traveler who continues to push his boundaries from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Author of The Family Code, Letters from Johnny, Finding The Way: A Novel of Lao Tzu, and his latest, Johnny Delivers. Eighteen-year-old Johnny Wong’s dead-end life consists of delivering Chinese food and holding his chaotic family together in Toronto. When his sweet but treacherous Auntie, the mahjong queen, calls in their family debt, he fears the family will lose the Red Pagoda restaurant and break apart. Dripping with 1970s nostalgia, Johnny Delivers is a gritty and humorous standalone sequel to the much-loved and award-winning Letters From Johnny.

Miriam Toews at Ottawa Writers Festival

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Miriam Toews, as she tells her own story for the first time in A Truce that Is Not Peace.

“Why do you write?” the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempt at an answer from Toews—all unsatisfactory to the organizer—surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister’s suicide more than fifteen years ago. She has been keeping up, she realizes, an internal correspondence with her beloved sibling, attempting to fill a silence she can barely comprehend. As Toews turns to face that silence, we come to see that the question “why I write” is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy.

A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact every creative person makes with memory.

With book sales by Perfect Books. More details and tickets here!

Emma Donoghue at Ottawa Writers Festival

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Emma Donoghue for a conversation about her latest bestseller, The Paris Express.

The Paris Express is set over a single day, as the morning train travels from the Normandy coast to the capital. Men, women, and children from all over the world take their seats in the passenger cars, which are divided by wealth and status. Among the passengers is an anarchist intent on destruction, a young boy travelling alone, a pregnant woman fleeing her home village for the anonymity of the big city, a medical student who suspects a girl may have a fatal disease, and the railway crew, devoted to the train, to the company, and to each other.

Based on an 1895 catastrophe that was captured in a series of surreal photographs, The Paris Express is a thrilling ride, full of the politics, fears, and chaos of an era not unlike our own.

With book sales by Perfect Books. More details and tickets here!