Our April Author of the Month: HELEN OYEYEMI

Helen Oyeyemi is the author of several story collections and novels, including Mr. Fox and Gingerbread, as well as Boy, Snow, Bird, which was a finalist for the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She received a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award and a 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and in 2013 she was named one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists. Born in Nigeria and raised in London, England, Oyeyemi now lives in Prague.

> Watch the lovely video greeting Helen Oyeyemi sent us!

Peaces, her newest book, is a vivid and inventive story about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage. When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment — and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favourite breakfast. They seem to be the only people onboard, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, Otto and Xavier begin to see connections to their own pasts, connections that now bind them together.

Our March Author of the Month: EDEN ROBINSON

Eden Robinson is the internationally-acclaimed and award-winning author of such books as Traplines and Blood Sports. Her second book, Monkey Beach, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award, and received the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 2001. In 2016 she received the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work, followed by being named as a recipient of the Writers' Trust Fellowship in 2017, and in 2018 she received an honorary doctoral degree from UBC for her literary works. A member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations, Robinson lives in Kitamaat Village, BC.

> Watch the lovely video greeting Eden Robinson sent to us from her home in Kitamaat Village!

Return of the Trickster is Robinson's newest book, which brings her highly acclaimed Trickster trilogy, including the books Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift, to a close. In this third book we catch up with Jared Martin as he wakes up naked, dangerously dehydrated and confused in the basement of his mom's old house in Kitimat. Some of the people he loves, the ones who don't see the magic he attracts, just think he fell off the wagon after a tough year of sobriety, but the truth for Jared is so much worse. He finally knows for sure that he is the only one of his dad's 535 children who is a Trickster, a shapeshifter with a free pass to other dimensions, and everyone he loves is in mortal danger from the dark forces he's accidentally unleashed — the scariest of which is his Aunt Georgina, a maniacal ogress hungry for his power, who has sent her posse of flesh-eating coy-wolves to track him down.

On Friday March 12, 2021, we hope you'll join us for an online discussion between Eden Robinson and Cherie Dimaline. See this page for details.

Books & Gifts of the Season 2020

Our annual holiday catalogue, Books & Gifts of the Season, is now available!

This year there will be no print edition of the catalogue, and instead it will be entirely online. You can start exploring it here:

• Books & Gifts of the Season for older teens and adults
• Books of the Season for Babies, Kids, and Teens

All of the items found in those lists can be purchased here on the website, in person at your nearest McNally Robinson bookstore, or by phone. For bookstore and contact details, including our current hours of operation, please visit this page.

We offer curbside pickup at our bookstores, delivery within Winnipeg, and shipping anywhere in the world via Canada Post. We can even giftwrap your online order and send it directly to your recipient.

Giller Prize 2020 shortlist

The shortlist for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize has been announced. The entire list is comprised of great Canadian books but we are especially thrilled to see a Winnipeg finalist make the cut: David Bergen for his newest collection of stories, Here The Dark.

Congratulations, David, and to all of the others who made the list!

The 2020 finalists include:

• Gil Adamson, for her novel Ridgerunner (Anansi Press)
• David Bergen, for his short story collection Here The Dark (Biblioasis)
• Shani Mootoo, for her novel Polar Vortex (Book*hug Press)
• Emily St. John Mandel, for her novel The Glass Hotel (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.)
• Souvankham Thammavongsa, for her short story collection How To Pronounce Knife (McClelland & Stewart / Penguin Random House Canada)

The winner will be announced on November 9, 2020, and you can celebrate with this year's virtual Giller Light Bash, with all proceeds going to Frontier College. For details on the Giller Light Bash, please see this website.