Kobo in Conversation

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

Nathan spoke with novelist Zalika Reid-Benta, 2020 winner of the  Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize  for her debut book  Frying Plantain ,  and author of the new novel  River Mumma . It's the story of a young woman named Alicia, who we meet at a time in her life when things are no longer going as well as they used to. Then Alicia meets a water deity named River Mumma who tasks her with recovering...

Michael spoke with crime novelist S. A. Cosby, author of the 2021 breakout bestseller  Razorblade Tears . His new book is  All the Sinners Bleed , the story of Titus Crown, former FBI agent and Charon County Virginia's first ever Black sheriff, who's moved back to the county to live with his aging father. On the first anniversary of his election to sheriff he's called to a school shooting. The inv...

We're taking a little bit of time off for summer, so this episode is a re-release of one we put out early last year. It's with science writer Britt Wray. Nathan spoke with her last May about her book Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis , which deals with the psychological and emotional implications of climate change, a topic that has only grown in relevance since it was f...

Michael spoke with writer John Vaillant, author of page-turning non-fiction that examines the relationship between humans and the natural world. His new book is  Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast .  At its heart is the 2016 wildfire that ravaged Fort McMurray, a city that stands at the heart of Canada's petroleum industry—but it's really about every city, every home, and the lives of every one o...

On stage in downtown Toronto, Nathan interviewed authors  Kevin Powers and Ausma Zehanat Khan about their latest novels, which introduce us to people working in the criminal justice system to solve violent crimes with far-reaching geopolitical causes—informed by each author's own unique perspective and expertise. Live at MOTIVE: Global Issues on the Page

In this episode recorded in-person in Kobo's new office in downtown Toronto, Nathan spoke with novelist Tom Rachman, author of books including  The Imperfectionists   and  The Italian Teacher .  It's our first in-person episode of  Kobo in Conversation  since 2020—and that's why it sounds a little different from the episodes we've been making over Zoom over the past few years.  The Imposters   is...

Nathan spoke with Samantha Irby, screenwriter on the TV series  Shrill and most recently the  Sex and the City  reboot  And Just Like That..., and the author of books including  We Are Never Meeting in Real Life ,  Wow, No Thank You , as well as the new essay collection  Quietly Hostile . They chatted about joining a TV writers' room as a superfan and why she hasn't (yet) written a book called "Ga...

Michael spoke with Rithu Bhasin, social justice advocate, entrepreneur, and author of  We've Got This: Unlocking the Beauty of Belonging , a book about building a culture where everyone feels welcome to show up with their whole self. And it's also a very personal book, in which she shares her own difficult journey towards a sense of belonging. Ritu Bhasin, on the good, the bad, and belonging

We spoke with Ore Agbaje-Williams, author of the new novel  The Three of Us . It's a story about three people: a husband and wife, and the wife's friend, who is definitely not the husband's friend. It's a wickedly funny book told through three voices in tension with one another, and possibly also objective reality.   Ore Agbaje-Williams on writing a character who says it all out loud

We spoke with Canadian journalist and bestselling romance novelist Carley Fortune, author of the new book  Meet Me at the Lake . It's a summer love story about Fern Brookbanks, who's forced to grieve the sudden death of her mother while trying to run her family's lakeside resort, alongside the manager who happens to be her ex. Unbeknownst to her, Fern's mom had hired a consultant just before she d...

We spoke with David Grann, author of non-fiction page-turners including  The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon  and  Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI , to say nothing of his many incredible articles about crime and adventure that he's written over the past twenty years for The New Yorker. And he has a new book,  The Wager: A Tale of Ship...

Shelley Read is the author of the novel  Go as a River , a story set in the 1940s on a peach farm in a Colorado town called Iola. She spoke with us about finding the voices of her quiet characters through her deep knowledge of the history and geography of the region. Shelley Read on bringing life to quiet characters

We spoke with Zoe Whittall, poet, screenwriter, and novelist. Her new book  The Fake  is a novel about a liar named Cammie and two people who fall under her spell—and then have to pick up the pieces of their lives when they fall out of it. Zoe Whittall on the truth about liars

We spoke with writer Hua Hsu, author of  Stay True: A Memoir . It's a heartfelt, thoughtful book about family, friendship, and figuring out who you are—and was widely lauded as one of the best non-fiction books of 2022. Hua Hsu on the strange characters of memoir