A Book Lover’s Guide To Calgary

Last month I took a trip to Calgary, and it was definitely a trip to remember. Though I wasn’t able to see the Rocky Mountains, I did experience my first pinball bar and sang karaoke in a room full of strangers. But that dear readers, is a story for another day.

Like any other book lovers, I love to explore new and old bookstores, and wander into a libraries, while wishing I could take all the books home, and have my own version of the Beauty and the Beast’s library. But funnily enough, the Tik Tok song of Peter Griffin singing I have $30,000 dollars in credit card debit, always pops into my head and reminds me that I can’t, and I need to win a lotto ticket one day for that dream to come true.

But back to my story. (I’ll stop side-tracking for now. But no promises.)

While in Calgary, I was able to experience a Calgary literary tour held by Shelf Life Books and the Literary Press Group. On this tour, a few of the places the tour stopped at was the Memorial Park Library, Calgary Public Library, and of course the amazing Shelf Life Books. From this trip, I discovered that Calgary, is a place not only known for its yearly Calgary Stampede, but should be recognized as a city that celebrates the arts, and the literary world.

For any book lovers who have the urge to visit literary spots in Calgary, here are my reasons to why I highly recommend visiting these places, and why you should check out in future literary tours in Calgary.

1. If you’re like me, and love historic old building that contain books, Memorial Park Library is definitely a book lover tourist spot to visit. This library, located in the heart of downtown Calgary, is the first major public library building in Alberta built in 1912.

2. The Calgary Public Library, is a spectacular new building that I have fallen in love with (and the exterior slightly reminds me of the Lassonde School of Engineering building at York University, but maybe that just me). This library is what I imagine a modern Beauty & the Beast library would look like, but with less talking furniture pieces. The most surprising thing about this library is that it has a kid-zone that has a jungle gym. Oh to be a kid again and curl up at the top of this jungle gym with a book! This library also has a cafe (LUKES café – sadly not run by Luke Danes), a performance hall, a recording booth, a space dedicated for Teens, and a space for anyone to speak to Indigenous Elders from multiple nations (The Elders’ Guidance Circle).

3. Shelf Life Books is an indie bookstore I highly recommend all to visit when in Calgary. It has books from multiple indie publishers from across Canada, is dog-friendly, host literary events, and has many polls on Twitter.

To all book lovers out there, visit Calgary to quench your literary thirst this summer.

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Thank you Kieran Leblanc, Book Publishers Association of Alberta, Read Alberta, and Shelf Life Books for your all your amazing work and hospitality, and for making my first publishing trip to be so memorable.