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...

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...

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 confront...

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 myster...

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 book...

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...

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...

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...

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 .

Natalie Zina Walschots spoke with us about her novel Hench , the day-to-day work of supervillainy, and why fanfic is her marker of success as a writer. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .

With the publication of his first book in 2000, Malcolm Gladwell pioneered and proceeded to dominate a whole genre of non-fiction where concepts explored in academic research were made presentable to a mass audience. But to write his latest book The Bomber Mafia , he approached his craft in a new way. Hear more from Kobo in Conversation .

In this final episode of Season 3 of  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. Hear more from  Kobo in Conversation .

In  Gutter Child Jael Richardson creates a dystopian world where disadvantage for some is written into law. In this wide-ranging conversation we spoke with her about this new novel, as well as the past and future of her writing career, and we learned how she conceives of her roles as a broadcaster and literary festival director who can bring a lot of attention to books and authors. Hear more from...

In her novel Little Threats , Emily Schultz transports readers to the summer of 1993, when a terrible crime was committed -- and possibly a miscarriage of justice. We spoke with Emily about her inspiration for this story of crime and punishment, how she sees the style of this book in connection to her other books, and why she set out not to write just another crime novel about a dead girl.  Hear m...

We spoke with actor Joanne Vannicola about their memoir,  All We Knew But Couldn't Say  and learned how they turned painful memories of their upbringing into a story of growth and self-discovery. Hear more from  Kobo in Conversation .

Journalist and novelist Linden MacIntyre joined us to talk about his new audiobook, The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami .  Hear more from  Kobo in Conversation .

We spoke with poet and scholar Billy-Ray Belcourt about his new book, A History of My Brief Body , a poetic, intellectual work of theory, essay, and memoir. He explained how he builds on the work of others in his own writing and what drives his mission to locate joy at the centre of Indigenous stories. Hear more from  Kobo in Conversation .

As epic as our  staff picks roundup was last week , we just couldn't stop once we got started.