Bookends with Mattea Roach

Video games make you violent. Video games corrupt the youth. Video games rot your brain! You’ve probably heard that narrative before … but Kawika Guillermo offers a fresh take in their new essay collection, Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games. The book is part memoir, part cultural analysis about the roles that video games play in our lives. For Kawika, games aren’t just a mindless...

What’s more horrifying than slashers, monsters … and Vancouver real estate? This week, Bookends brings you on-stage at the Vancouver Writers Fest. Back in October, Mattea Roach was joined by writers Mona Awad, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Jen Sookfong Lee for a special panel about how the horror genre reflects our lived experiences. All three authors have written horror stories that go deeper than jum...

… and they can’t keep their hands off each other. That’s the premise at the centre of Brandon Taylor’s latest novel, Minor Black Figures. It’s about a painter named Wyeth who’s struggling to find his voice in New York’s politically charged art scene. It only gets messier when Wyeth has the perfect meet-cute at a bar … and starts falling for someone who has already devoted himself to God. Brandon j...

What’s more romantic than planning an assassination together? You’d have to ask the radical activist Emma Goldman, who did just that with her revolutionary partner and lover, Sasha Berkman. Emma was a real historical figure and one of the best known anarchists and orators of all time … and the Canadian author Robert Hough fictionalizes her life in his latest novel, Anarchists in Love . The bo...

John Irving’s books are on many readers’ list of favourites. He’s written novels like The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules , which you also might recognize from their beloved screen adaptations. John is known for writing generation-spanning novels about family, identity and contemporary issues. His latest book, Queen Esther , delivers on that promise. It follows a Vienna-born Jewi...

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that Canisia Lubrin has a way with words. Last year, she took home the Carol Shields Prize for her debut novel, Code Noir. Now she’s back with a long-form poem called The World After Rain . The poem is an epic tribute to her mother and the passing of time, and it poured out of Canisia over the span of 16 hours. This week, Canisia joins Mattea Roach to talk ab...

Leila Mottley was only 17 years-old when she wrote her debut novel, Nightcrawling … and she was 20 when she became the youngest author ever to make the Booker Prize longlist. After that incredible start, Leila is now back with her second novel, called The Girls Who Grew Big . It’s about a group of young mothers who navigate growing up and raising children in a town that ostracizes them. This week,...

You might know Chris Hadfield, decorated astronaut and former Commander of the International Space Station. But do you know Chris Hadfield, the pilot, engineer, musician and author? His latest novel, Final Orbit , is a Cold War-era thriller set against the backdrop of the Space Race of the 1970s. The book draws from Chris’s own experiences in the stars … with a dangerous twist. This week, Chris te...

In Aurora Stewart de Peña's debut novel, Julius Julius , ads are inescapable … which isn’t far off from real life. If you ever feel unsettled by the way that marketing influences us, you’ll probably resonate with Julius Julius . It's a satirical look at the advertising industry and a finalist for this year’s Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Aurora herself is a veteran of the advertising...

Not many people can say that a Booker prize nomination feels like deja vu … but Kiran Desai is one of those rare people. Twenty years after her first win, Kiran is back on the Booker shortlist with her long-awaited new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny . It’s an expansive book that traces the paths of two young Indians as they criss-cross the world and each others’ lives. It’s a love story,...

Torrey Peters was in the woods building her own sauna when she came up with the titular story in her new collection, called Stag Dance . The story is about a lumberjack at the turn of the 20th century … and it’s a sharp turn from her debut novel Detransition, Baby, which was a huge success with both readers and critics. The stories in Stag Dance explore desire, sexuality and the very idea of trans...

It’s hard to believe that Zadie Smith was just 24 years old when she wrote White Teeth , the book that made her a literary star. 25 years later, Zadie is still finding new stories from her life to reflect on — and she shares many of those in her latest essay collection, Dead and Alive . The book combines art criticism with musings about technology, parenting and the writers who've inspired her. Th...

In the new novel Pick a Colour , the answer to that question is a resounding yes. The debut novel from Souvankham Thammavongsa centres on Ning, the owner of a nail salon. Before she was a nail technician, Ning was a boxer … and she hasn’t completely shrugged off those instincts from the ring. Souvankham won the Giller Prize in 2020 for her story collection How to Pronounce Knife , and her new nove...

A century from now, how will historians look back on your life? In his latest novel, What We Can Know , Ian McEwan imagines the future in 100 years. In a world altered by climate change and nuclear war, human beings are looking back at our current age with a mix of nostalgia, envy and contempt … which is why a scholar becomes fixated on finding a lost poem from 2014. You might know Ian from his br...

The bunnies are back … and they’re bloodier than ever. In We Love You, Bunny , Mona Awad returns to the surreal world of her best selling novel Bunny . A deliciously deranged mix of fairy tale, satire and horror, Bunny was loved by critics and readers alike. But what do the villains of that story — a clique of mean girls called the Bunnies — have to say about it? We Love You, Bunny provides a dark...

Soju, kimchi, gun fights, car chases … and profound reflections on the Korean diaspora. Whether you’re hungry for food or for action, Jinwoo Park’s debut novel has it all. Oxford Soju Club is about a group of Korean spies carrying out their missions in Oxford. At the centre of it all is The Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in town. Like any good spy novel, the book delivers on secrets and int...

Ken Follett is one of the most successful authors alive today. He’s sold almost 200 million books, and readers have devoured his stories about the Black Plague, German spies and nuclear war. His next challenge? The great mystery of Stonehenge. Ken’s latest novel, Circle of Days , imagines the story behind that monument and wonder of ancient life. Ken joins Mattea Roach to talk about what makes Sto...

The winner of the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize is The Invisible Woman by Laura MacGregor. It's a deeply personal and heartfelt story Laura wrote about her son Matthew, who lived with profound disabilities and required around-the-clock care. Laura wrote The Invisible Woman as a way of dealing with her grief after Matthew's passing, and to reckon with how extreme caregiving had shaped her life. Laura j...

After massive hits like The Poppy War, Babel and Yellowface , R.F. Kuang’s new novel takes readers to hell — quite literally. Katabasis follows two grad students who venture through the underworld to save their professor’s soul, and R.F. Kuang’s own experience as a PhD student, high school debater and talented chef all factor into the book. At a special live event presented by the Toronto Internat...

Statistically, your odds of becoming an astronaut are close to zero. You have to make some pretty extreme sacrifices to reach the stars, and that’s the thrust of a new novel about the first Cherokee astronaut. To the Moon and Back is Eliana Ramage’s debut novel and the September pick for Reese Witherspoon’s book club. It’s a book about ambition and astronauts, but it’s also about what it means to...

A snail scientist takes part in a kidnapping scheme to protest the Ukrainian romance industry. That's the story Maria Reva was writing in her debut novel, Endling . But then Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leaving Maria to question whether fiction had a place in the devastating new reality. The result is an innovative and darkly humorous book in which Maria blends her novel wit...

Growing up in rural Ontario, Jeff Lemire bought superhero comics at the local minimart. Years later, he’s one of the biggest comic book creators in Canada … and he’s the one bringing those superheroes to life. Jeff’s new memoir, 10,000 Ink Stains , tells his story. The book looks back on his 25-year career, diving into notable works like Essex County and Sweet Tooth — both of which were recently a...

Milena Jesenská was a courageous journalist, translator and resister of the Nazi regime. So why do most people only know her as Franz Kafka’s lover? Milena was one of the great loves of Kafka’s life, and his letters to her are immortalized in the book Letters to Milena . But that story remains unfinished … because Milena’s responses have never been found. That’s where writer Christine Estima steps...

Feeling nostalgic for the music of the aughts? You’re not the only one. Holly Brickley’s debut novel, Deep Cuts , follows a music-obsessed writer named Percy coming of age in the early 2000s. When Percy befriends a young musician in college, they start to collaborate and their connection deepens. Holly and Mattea talk about their shared love of music, the magic of the pre-smartphone era and why mu...

Tessa Hulls won a Pulitzer Prize for her first book. So why is it also her last? Tessa’s graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts , unravels the stories of three women in her family: her Chinese grandmother, her mother and herself. It’s an emotional, complex and beautifully illustrated book that took Tessa almost a decade to produce. This week on Bookends, Tessa tells Mattea about following her family ghost...