Kobo in Conversation

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Amanda Peters, author of the 2023 novel  The Berry Pickers , a book about a 4-year-old girl who goes missing while her family is visiting Maine for the summer to pick blueberries. It's a book that won both the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction  and  the Crime Writers of Canada's first novel award, among many other accolades. Her new book is a collection...

Michael Tamblyn spoke with Keziah Weir, winner of the  2024 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize  in the category of Mystery for her novel,  The Mythmakers . It's the story of Sal, a writer who's hit a very rough patch in every aspect of her life. But then she discovers a short story written by an author she met some time ago—about her and her and that moment of meeting. She learns that the story is a part...

Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with fiction and comics writer Rainbow Rowell, author of the novels  Eleanor &   Park  and  Fangirl , as well as the 2017 revival of Marvel's  Runaways  comic book series, the current run of  She-Hulk , and many other  books  and  stories . Her newest book is  Slow Dance , the story of a couple of grown-ups who've been friends since they were kids, but didn't manage to st...

At Toronto's Harbourfront Centre, Nathan interviewed Ian Hamilton, author of the  Ava Lee series , and Steve Urszenyi, author of  Perfect Shot . Ian's latest book  The Fury of Beijing   is (possibly) the last in the series, while Steve's book kicks off the  Special Agent Alexandra Martel series. Live at MOTIVE: Thrills from Start to Finish

Michael spoke with artist, illustrator, and fashion designer, Maurice Vellekoop. Over a career spanning four decades, Vellekoop's work has been published in magazines including  The New Yorker ,  Vogue, Rolling Stone ,  Fashion,  and  Cosmopolitan , and he's the author and illustrator of the books,  The World of Gloria Badcock: A Comic for Adults,  A Nut at the Opera,  and  Maurice Vellekoop's Pin...

We're sweeping up the glitter after awarding the 10th annual Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize to a trio of brilliant authors just a few days ago (more on that to come). We'll be back in your feed with more author interviews soon.  In the meantime... When Kobo in Conversation hosts Michael Tamblyn and Nathan Maharaj aren't reading books and interviewing authors for this show, they're working in t...

Michael spoke with writer Stephen Maher, author of  The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau . Informed by interviews with hundreds of people close to the events covered, as well as Maher's own conversations with Trudeau himself, it's a portrait of a complex person leading through complex times. Stephen Maher offers readers a glimpse of The Prince

Nathan spoke with Laura Tamblyn Watts, founder and chief executive of  CanAge , Canada's national seniors' advocacy organization, and author of  Let's Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems with 27 Essential Conversations , a book about the many hard things facing adults who know their aging parents need to make some decisions—and probably some changes too—but they don't k...

Nathan spoke with novelist Anna Julia Stainsby, author of  The Afterpains . It's the story of Rosy, whose grief over the loss of her infant daughter nearly twenty years ago has all but cut her off from her husband and teenage son. And it's about Isaura, an immigrant from Honduras raising her daughter in Toronto and trying to keep her out of the grip of a centuries-long curse. Anna Julia Stainsby o...

Nathan spoke with novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda, author of the 2012 international bestseller  Secret Daughter . Her new book is  A Great Country . It's about the Shah family, recently moved to the well-to-do neighbourhood of Pacific Hills. While Ashok and Priya catch up with friends at a dinner party one Saturday evening, their children are each, separately, experiencing things that will leave thei...

Michael spoke with journalist Michael Finkel, author of  True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa , and  The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit  as well as numerous articles about extreme places and unlikely people for Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, GQ, and the New York Times Magazine. His latest book  The Art Thief is the story of Stéphane Breitwieser, a...

Nathan spoke with novelist Kiley Reid, author of the 2020 novel,  Such a Fun Age . Her new book,  Come and Get It is set on the campus of the University of Arkansas, specifically at a dormitory called Belgrade, and it follows Millie Cousins, a 24-year-old Resident Advisor or RA to folks familiar with dorm life, who's launching a second run at the final year of her degree after taking time off to l...

Nathan spoke with Dr Jen Gunter, OB/GYN and bestselling author of several books on health, anatomy, and medicine:  The Vagina Bible ,  The Menopause Manifesto , and most recently a new book called  Blood: The science, medicine, and mythology of menstruation . Dr. Jen Gunter on writing books about bodies for people  

Nathan spoke with R. F. Kuang, author of the epic historical fantasy trilogy  The Poppy War ,  as well as the 2022 novel, also a work of historical fantasy called Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution . R. F. Kuang's latest novel is  Yellowface . It's the story of June Hayward and Athena Liu, a pair of writers on the rise—one of whom is rising...

Michael spoke with R.H. Thomson: actor, director, playwright, and author of  By The Ghost Light: Wars, Memory, and Families .  Part memoir, part travelogue, part history, it's a thoughtful and impassioned consideration of war and the stories we tell one another about it R.H. Thomson on viewing wars by the light of family history

In January of 2023 our host and producer Nathan Maharaj spoke with Kai Thomas, author of the novel  In the Upper Country . It's a story set in the fictional Canadian town of Dunmore, a place where people fleeing slavery in the southern United States build new lives. In our roundup of  the best books we read in 2023 , Nathan called out In the Upper Country as the book that stayed with him the whole...

Nathan spoke with novelist Ashley Audrain, author of the 2021 international bestseller  The Push . Her new book  The Whispers   is a story about marriage, mothers and motherhood and parenthood generally, and also women's rage. Ashley Audrain on bringing rage from the group chat to the page

You can't possibly need more reading recommendations after our last episode featuring the best books read by the staff of Kobo in 2023 but we've never let the height of anybody's TBR pile stop us from singing the praises of our favourite books. Here are a few more, including one you  absolutely must read ASAP— plus co-hosts Michael and Nathan talk about what made 2023 a different kind of year in b...

We connected with the staff of Kobo over Zoom and in our brand new studio in our new office to ask them about the best books they read in 2023. We learned what made Rebecca Ross a must-read author this year, how one staff member found the right book for remembering his rockstar friend, and what well-known series of thrillers one of our best-read colleagues wishes they'd gotten around to years ago....

Michael spoke with journalist and human rights advocate Rowan Jetté Knox, author of the 2019 memoir  Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family , as well as a new memoir that came out this year:  One Sunny Afternoon: A Memoir of Trauma and Healing . Rowan Jetté Knox on learning from hard times

Michael spoke with Mohawk writer and editor, Alicia Elliott, author of an award-winning book of essays,  A Mind Spread Out on the Ground ,  and a new novel,  And Then She Fell .  It is the story of a young woman named Alice experiencing the stress of new motherhood, feeling isolated in Toronto, which feels far away, culturally more than physically, from where she grew up on Six Nations. There she'...

Nathan joined Giller Prize-winning novelist Sean Michaels on stage at the Toronto International Festival of Authors to talk about his new novel  Do You Remember Being Born? and the role of technology in the creation of art—from automated spellchecking to ChatGPT. Sean Michaels, live at TIFA 2023

Nathan welcomed Waubgeshig Rice to the Kobo studio to talk about the sequel to his 2018 novel  Moon of the Crusted Snow ,  the story of an Anishinaabe community slowly realizing that what at first appeared to be a power outage might be the end of the world as we know it. In  Moon of the Turning Leaves   the community realizes their time in this place may be at an end, so they send out a band of wa...

Michael spoke with writer and activist Naomi Klein, author of highly influential and bestselling books including  No Logo ,  The Shock Doctrine ,  and the new book  Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World . Like all of her books, it's an accessible yet complex work of socioeconomic and political criticism... but it's also funny, at times disturbing, deeply rooted in its author's personal experi...

Michael welcomed poet and novelist Michael Crummey to the Kobo office studio to talk about his new novel,  The Adversary . S et in a fictional Newfoundland village called Mockbeggar, it's the story of a lifelong rivalry between two entrepreneurs that escalates into violence and revenge. Michael Crummey confronts The Adversary