We were joined by actor, playwright, and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of the international bestseller Fall on Your Knees , to talk about her new novel, Fayne , a work of historical fiction about a girl named Charlotte, her father Henry, a painting of Charlotte's late mother and infant brother—and a secret that lies between them. Ann-Marie MacDonald on staying open to surprise ....
We spoke with Chief Robert Joseph, a Hereditary chief of the Gwawaenuk First Nation and honourary witness to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission about his new book Namwayu t: A Pathway to Reconciliation . In the book and in this episode, Chief Joseph shares an intimate view of his own life while making an impassioned plea to readers to embrace vulnerability, summon the courage to recognize truth and trauma, and take steps towards reconciliation. Chief Robert Joseph on the need and desir...
Novelist Hernan Diaz is a professor at Columbia University and the author of In the Distance , a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. We spoke with him about a range of topics that inform his new novel Trust , a fractured, multi-layered book about the life and ambitions of the fictional tycoon Andrew Bevel. Hernan Diaz on power, truth, and Trust ....
Deon Meyer is the author of The Dark Flood , the newest installment in his Benny Griessel series of detective novels set in South Africa. We spoke with Deon as part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors' Mystery & Crime Festival: MOTIVE. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
Enjoy this conversation with non-fiction thriller author Ben Mezrich, author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House about his new historical fiction novel The Midnight Ride , which started out as a wildly ambitious project taken up in the early days of the pandemic. We spoke with Ben as part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors' Mystery & Crime Festival: MOTIVE. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
We spoke with Cory Silverberg, educator, entrepreneur, researcher, and author of the books What Makes a Baby, Sex is a Funny Word , and the new book, You Know, Sex . These books are approachable and factual guides to sex and bodies, but also grown-up feelings, experiences, and all kinds of stuff that can be really hard for anyone to talk about. Supported by Fiona Smyth's vivid and playful illustrations, Cory Silverberg's writing always finds a humane and plain-spoken way to explain everything fr...
Some listeners may recognize the voice of our guest Elamin Abdelmahmoud from the CBC podcasts Party Lines and Pop Chat . He joined us to talk about his new book, Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces in which he writes movingly of his relationship to his personal elsewhere, the Sudanese city of Khartoum from which he came to Kingston, Ontario as a child. He also writes beautifully about his passion for country music and affinity for the American South, and mounts a convincing defense of the much-...
We were joined by science writer Riley Black, author of several bestsellers on paleontology including My Beloved Brontosaurus , Written in Stone , and Skeleton Keys . And if you've read literally anything anywhere about dinosaurs in the last decade, you've probably happened upon pieces by her in National Geographic, WIRED, Smithsonian Magazine, and Scientific American. Her new book is The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World . It's a richly narrated...
Sheila Heti is a novelist, playwright, and former interviews editor for the literary magazine The Believer. We spoke with her (and her dog Feldman) about her new novel Pure Colour and how her novels come into being. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
We spoke with Britt Wray, broadcaster, science writer, and researcher at the intersection of mental health and climate change. Her new book is Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis which is a deeply felt and thoroughly-researched study of what it means to wake up every day and live our lives on this warming planet of ours—without succumbing to despair about it all. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
Podcast aficionados may recognize our guest Stephanie Foo from her work on This American Life, Snap Judgment , and 99% Invisible , to name just a few of her credits. And now she has written a book called What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma that's both a memoir of growing up in an abusive and neglectful environment and also an explainer on complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), a condition that's not as well-known as it should be—though its effects could be extre...
NoViolet Bulawayo is the Booker Prize shortlisted author of We Need New Names and the new novel Glory , a fable-like retelling of the two years between the overthrow of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and his death. It's moving, provocative, and surprisingly funny. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
We spoke with Julia Quinn, author of the Bridgerton series of Regency romance novels. She told us about what it was like to see her characters come to life on-screen, and we asked her whether we'll eventually see a cinematic interpretation of a Smythe-Smith musicale. (Originally released February 12, 2021) We'll be back soon with new episodes of Kobo in Conversation ....
Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and author of the 2010 nonfiction bestseller, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error . Her new book is a memoir, Lost & Found , which chronicles the grief of losing her father as well as the joy of finding love--with some surprising and fascinating lessons about typography, meteorites, and the philosophy of finding along the way. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and 2021 McArthur "Genius" Fellowship recipient. We spoke with him about his newest book, A Little Devil in America: Notes on Black Performance , and we learned about this book's evolution, how he's handling his recent run of successes, and which books he's been re-reading since childhood. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
What happens when you ask around a global digital bookselling company about the best books its staff read in the past year? You get more books than you can fit into one episode. Enjoy more of the best books we read in 2021! Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .
We asked the staff of Kobo about the best eBooks and audiobooks they read in 2021. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .
Our friends at the Kobo Writing Life podcast spoke with romance writer Chloe Liese, author of The Mistletoe Motive . Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .
Writing duo Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham are better known to fans as James S. A. Corey, author of The Expanse , the epic science fiction series that has just concluded with Leviathan Falls . We spoke with them about the surprising seed of the 9-volume series and what they learned from working on The Expanse TV show, which is also drawing to a close. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a theoretical physicist and the author of The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred . In that book she not only explains in layperson's terms the phenomena she observes as a scientist, but also how she observes science as a social and fundamentally human activity, with all the messiness that entails. We spoke with her about many things, including her East LA upbringing, and how she sees herself and people like her among the ...
Janelle Shane writes the blog AI Weirdness, where she delights readers with broken outcomes of the latest developments in artificial intelligence, ranging from computer-generated recipes like horseradish brownies, to pickup lines like, "You look like a thing, and I love you." She's also the author of the book, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place . We spoke with her about the uses and abuses of artificial intelligen...
Edward Rutherfurd is the author of epic works of historical fiction including London , Russka , The Dublin Saga , and the new novel, China . We spoke with him about how he finds the right scale for his enormous books and when one of the many projects he has simmering is ready to be fleshed out into a manuscript of many hundreds of pages. And he shared with us his perspective on how he confronts the challenge of getting inside the minds of characters who would have lived centuries ago and half a ...
In this special episode of Kobo In Conversation Michael spoke with Shari Lapena, the Canadian queen of domestic suspense, as part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors with an audience watching online and asking questions. Listen to hear about Lapena's award-nominated false start as a novelist, where she got the idea for her new book Not A Happy Family , and why--unlike other mystery writers--she doesn't work with a "murder wall." Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
We're back with a new season of Kobo in Conversation! This week, Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus series of Scottish crime novels, joins us to talk about his new novel The Dark Remains , which he wrote with assistance from, and in tribute to his literary hero, the late William McIlvanney. He spoke about how life under covid lockdown unlocked a wave of writing productivity, and which books helped him get his reading mojo back. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
Phenderson Djèlí Clark's books take readers into places in history that feel familiar, but have spun off of the timeline we exist on. In Ring Shout we meet a militia fighting in Georgia against the Ku Klux Klan, which has invited actual demons into its hooded ranks with the help of the magical cinema of D. W. Griffith. But he's also written about a steampunk version of early 20th century Cairo in the Dead Djinn Universe and an alternate history of New Orleans during the US Civil War in The Black...
As we draw Season 4 of Kobo in Conversation to a close, we bring you a conversation with theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack on a wholly different kind of ending. Listeners may recall host Michael Tamblyn's praise for The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) in our year-end Staff Picks episode , where he found that during 2020, it helped to have a sense of time and space and the forces acting on every particle throughout the universe. Michael spoke with Katie about the 5 theoretical ways ...
Torrey Peters' debut novel Detransition, Baby wasn't supposed to be a novel. She'd self-published a pair of novellas and was planning on doing the same for this book -- until it outgrew her plans for it. She spoke with us about her writing career, how she navigates expectations of representation, and why Detransition, Baby is perfectly suited to a mainstream publisher who doesn't specialize in reaching transgender readers. Plus, she told us about the surprising direction she's going in with her ...
Paleontologist Steve Brusatte joined us to talk about his new book for young readers, The Age of Dinosaurs as well as his 2018 book for adults, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs . We learned about his passion for giving readers a sense of dinosaurs as living, breathing animals, and what his hopes are for the future of paleontology. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation ....
Helen Oyeyemi, author of Gingerbread and the playful new novel Peaces , spoke with us about the importance to her writing process of taking long book-free breaks, and how serving on juries for literary prizes has made her certain that she'll never win a major award. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .
Dr. Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree, spoke with us about the astonishing science of how trees communicate with one another. And she gave us a view into the hard work, dirty hands, and heartbreak of a life spent living in and studying forests. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .
