Kobo in Conversation

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Antonio Michael Downing, author of the 2021 memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming , as well as the illustrated children's book Stars in My Crown . For just about a year now he's also been the host of CBC's The Next Chapter , where every week he talks to authors (and once in a while an opinionated bookseller) about books they want people to pay attention...

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Scott Alexander Howard, winner of the  2025 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and author of The Other Valley . It's the story of Odile Ozanne, a young girl who lives in a small village in a valley. In the next valley over, in the west, there is an identical village where events from 20 years ago are taking place, and in the valley to the east there is another vill...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Rob Franklin. His debut novel Great Black Hope is about a young man, named Smith, who gets arrested for cocaine possession on his way home from a party at the end of an oppressively hot New York summer. Smith is Black, and he's queer; he's also a Stanford graduate and his family back in Atlanta is, as they say, not without means. As Smith's court date looms...

This past spring Kobo held an event for employees called KoboCon. It was an opportunity for the staff of Kobo to share interesting things they're working on and some big ideas they're grappling with. One of those big ideas was how the information ecosystem affects readers, writers, and individuals coming together at work, so we brought in expert explainer and debunker Timothy Caulfield to talk abo...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Wally Lamb, the author of novels including She's Come Undone , I Know This Much Is True , and The Hour I First Believed . His new novel, his first in nearly a decade, is The River is Waiting . It's about Corbin Ledbetter, Corby to his friends, husband to Emily and father to twins Maisie and Niko. Corby's at the precipice of mid-life when he makes a terrible,...

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with Eliza Reid, author of the novel Death on the Island . It's a mystery set on a remote island in Iceland where a dinner party of diplomats turns fatal for the deputy ambassador of Canada. And it just so happens that the elements of this story—Iceland, diplomacy, and the perils of being a Canadian out in the world—these are all things that Ottawa-born Eliza Reid knows...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with poet and novelist Aaron Kreuter. His new book is Lake Burntshore , which tells the story of the summer of 2013 at a Canadian Jewish summer camp that's just fired a several camp counsellors after they're caught smoking (then-illegal) marijuana. The enterprising son of the camp's owner springs into action and comes up with a surprising solution to their sudden staffing...

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with Elyse Graham, author of  Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War Two . It's the true story of how the United States, as war raged in Europe, quickly built an organization staffed with intelligence officers recruited not from the military—but from the ranks of the bookworms—the academics, librarians, and archivists found in...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Liann Zang, author of the new novel Julie Chan is Dead . In it, Julie Chan is in fact very much alive but her estranged twin sister Chloe, a wildly successful social media influencer, has suddenly died and it just so happens that Julie is for just a moment the only person in the world who knows Chloe is dead.  So she decides to pick up and start living Chloe's appare...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Jon Hickey, author of Big Chief .   It's takes place in an Anishinaabe reservation called Passage Rouge Nation during the last weekend before a Tribal Presidential election. Incumbent president Mack Beck is coasting to another term happily overseeing tribal governmental matters as well as the Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel when his rival, activist Gloria Hawk...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Claire Cameron, author of the novels The Bear and The Last Neanderthal . Her new book is How to Survive a Bear Attack . It's a memoir of family, of illness, of love, and the author's ongoing fascination with a 1991 bear attack that happened in a wilderness she knows so well.  Claire Cameron on what she's learned from studying monsters

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with mystery novelist Nita Prose, author of the international bestseller  The Maid . It's the story of Molly Gray, a 20-something hotel maid whose job perfectly suits her need for order and predictable routine. As tends to happen in mystery novels set in hotels, Molly discovers a dead guest and finds herself a suspect in the ensuing murder investigation—an investigation...

In our latest installment in this series, hosts Michael Tamblyn and Nathan Maharaj caught up on a book whose author they're not going to get to interview. Topics covered in this episode: Meta's problem with an ex-employee's tell-all memoir The cognitive perils of being a billionaire The publishing perils of nonfiction Moving fast and breaking things as sage wisdom from the elders of Silicon Valley...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with podcaster Nate DiMeo about his book  The Memory Palace ,  based on the podcast by the same name. In  The Memory Palace , history comes in vignettes, as short stories, as jewels carefully mined from a variety of sources. Nathan and Nate talked about history as story, how Nate realized the thing that made him the best guy to sit next to at the bar was a great idea for...

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with David A. Robertson, author of many books including the Governor General's award-winning  When We Were Alone ,  and  On the Trapline , both illustrated by Julie Flett. He's also the author of the ongoing series for young readers,  The   Misewa   Saga . And he's the author of the 2022 novel for adults,  A Theory of Crows , as well as a memoir from 2020 called  Black W...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Christina Cooke, author of the novel  Broughtupsy . It's a book about a young woman who returns to Jamaica to reconnect with her sister and to spread the ashes of their little brother amidst the places that make up the history of their family .   Christina Cooke wrote the 90s story only she could tell

Following our last episode all about the best books we read in 2024, host and producer Nathan Maharaj connected over Zoom with even more Kobo staffers (including one that'll be very familiar Kobo in Conversation listeners) to talk about the books that have stuck with them over the past 12 months. So welcome back once more, to our year in books.  The best books we read in 2024 We'll be back in your...

Listen in as Kobo staffers share the best books they read in 2024. It's all here, from the buzziest new releases to bucket list classics. The best books we read in 2024  

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Dr. Jonathan Stea, clinical psychologist and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary, about avoiding the pitfalls of pseudoscience and what we can all learn from wellness grifters in his book  Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry . Dr. Jonathan Stea on how to mind your mental health

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Anne Fleming, author of  Curiosities , which was a finalist for the 2024 Giller Prize. It's the story of how five fictional 17th century manuscripts uncovered by an amateur historian named Anne paint a picture of a handful of unusual lives. Anne Fleming on love stories and curiosity

Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Anna Gomez, author of  Somewhere Along the Way . It's the story of Charlotte, or Charlie to her friends, a woman thrown into turmoil with the death of her father. She is given a collection of letters that her mother had been sending since she left Charlie and her dad so long ago. Those letters set Charlie on a journey, and we all get to come along for the r...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Richard Powers. Many readers will know him from his 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel  The Overstory , or perhaps  The Echo Maker ,  which won the 2006 National Book Award. His newest novel is  Playground , a story about four characters joined in different ways—marriage, friendship, a kind of celebrity—but sharing nonetheless an interest in the French Polyne...

In our second installment in this new series, hosts Michael Tamblyn and Nathan Maharaj sat down to go over some of the latest goings-on since summer in the business of books. Topics covered in this episode: Is AI a no-go for NaNoWriMo? Audible announces AI narration—as a side hustle for human narrators B&N needs more shovels (to deal with AI) Bestselling nonfiction author Steven Johnson on employi...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with writer katherena vermette, author of the award-winning 2016 novel  The Break , the graphic novel series  A Girl Called Echo , as well as a number of  poetry collections  and  books for children . Her latest novel is  real ones . It's the story of a pair of sisters, lyn and June, whose mother's claims to Indigenous identity come under more scrutiny than they can bear....

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with writer and filmmaker Jamaluddin Aram, winner of the 2024  Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize  for Literary fiction for his novel  Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday . It's a tapestry of stories about different people—shopkeepers, tradespeople, doctors, children, and their parents—while in the background, often very deep in the background, a war is being f...