Bookends with Mattea Roach
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Bookends with Mattea Roach
When the book ends, the conversation begins. Mattea Roach speaks with writers who have something to say about their work, the world and our place in it. You’ll always walk away with big questions to ponder and new books to read.
Episodis Recents
158 episodis
A raunchy workplace satire ... about deradicalizing ISIS brides?
When Nussaibah Younis decided to write a book about ISIS brides, everyone expected it to be an academic tome. Instead, she wrote a raunchy satire abou...
Here’s why Fran Lebowitz needs a cigarette
Fran Lebowitz is a legendary writer and critic. She’s made a career of sharing hot takes without apology, and she didn’t hold back when she joined Mat...
Dive into the dark underbelly of rural Ontario
It’s easy to glamorize small town life … but Kevin Hardcastle’s new novel, County Road Six, is all about the darkness lurking in rural Canada. When Ar...
Douglas Stuart was a fashion exec — now he designs stories
A glamorous life and career in New York’s fashion industry was everything Douglas Stuart worked for. So why did he walk away from it all? And how did...
What’s the cost of the immigrant success story?
Anne Kim has it all. She’s a high-powered tax lawyer, lives in a beautiful apartment in New York and has the perfect boyfriend to boot. She’s the prid...
A forensic thriller writer autopsies her own life
A famous crime writer who gets her inspiration from years of working on real cases at the medical examiner’s office. That’s the story of Patricia Corn...
Accepting the unknown … and a giant flock of crows
The winner of the 2026 CBC Short Story Prize is the Vancouver-based writer Larah Luna. Larah’s story, A Season of Crows, is about a small town learnin...
Literature, liberation and Lolita in Iran
Books can be revolutionary. That’s the message of Azar Nafisi’s celebrated memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, which is about her experience teaching for...
Exploring the shady side of charity organizations
Charity organizations are all about doing good. What could possibly go wrong? Sharon Bala’s new novel, Good Guys, is all about how philanthropy operat...
Can our friendships age with us?
If it feels like the years are going by faster and faster … you’re not the only one. Grant Ginder’s new novel, So Old, So Young, follows a group of co...
Life of Pi author Yann Martel on the wars in your everyday
Yann Martel didn’t think anybody would read Life of Pi when he first published it. 25 years later, his story of a teenage boy and a tiger adrift in th...
How to find hope in a funeral home
When Mai Nguyen lost her daughter just days after she was born, writing about a similar character in a novel brought her comfort. Her new book, Cleo D...
Should you be afraid of the wolf hour?
The “wolf hour” is a term for the deep-night period between roughly three and four in the morning. The world is quiet, your guard is down … and if you...
Would a tradwife influencer survive in 1855?
In Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, Yesteryear, a modern day tradwife influencer shares her picturesque farm life with 8 million followers … until one...
How do we restore our sense of wonder in media?
Ben Lerner’s new novel is all about how technology shapes memory and connection … and it kicks off when a guy breaks his phone. In Transcription, a ma...
What does dystopia look like in the suburbs?
Even if you’re living in a dystopia, life goes on. Carrianne Leung’s new novel, Wonderland Road, is about making it work and finding hope in a collaps...
Is it magic … or is it Siri?
In Michael Redhill’s new novel, The Trial of Katterfelto, the titular Katterfelto is a traveling magician and scientist in the late 1700s. One day, Ka...
Why status and power are currency in Pakistan
What does it mean to love a place that is so complicated? Pulitzer prize finalist Daniyal Mueenuddin’s new novel, This Is Where the Serpent Lives, div...
The last book Julian Barnes will ever write
Julian Barnes says his new novel is his final. It’s called Departure(s), and it’s about two people who fall in love when they’re young and then meet a...
Is there a soundtrack to your life?
For Michael V. Smith, the answer is a resounding yes … and he explores that in his new book, Soundtrack: A Lyric Memoir. It’s a collection of poems ab...
If at first you break up … try, try again?
This week, Bookends is celebrating libraries with a special Canada Reads event at the Hamilton Public Library.
Morgann Book truly...
How long could you lie about who you are?
In Tara Gereaux’s new novel, Wild People Quiet, a Métis woman works tirelessly to hide her identity for years … until everything starts to come crashi...
Why Tayari Jones fights for her stories
What does family mean to two motherless daughters? That question is at the centre of Kin, a new work of historical fiction by Tayari Jones. It’s about...
Inside Toronto’s most notorious women’s prison
Toronto’s most infamous women’s prison was meant to rehabilitate women … but its real history tells a much darker story. Heather Marshall dives headfi...
For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival
If you had to tell a story to stay alive … what story would you tell? Jeanette Winterson’s new book, One Aladdin Two Lamps, is a nonfiction exploratio...
What is boyhood to a Palestinian teen?
What does it mean to come of age in a place where violence is a daily fact of life? Ashraf Zaghal’s debut novel, Seven Heavens Away, is about a Palest...
Strip club … or culture hub?
What happens behind the closed doors of a strip club? Pole dancing, booming basslines … and in Nic Stone’s new novel, the chilling mystery of a missin...
Rage and love at the end of apartheid
Can you inherit fury? Kagiso Lesego Molope’s new novel, We Inherit The Fire, follows a mother and daughter at the end of apartheid in South Africa. Ke...
The beauty and despair of Appalachia
What do you know about Appalachia? Fancy Gap is the debut novel by Zak Jones, and it challenges the preconceptions we might have about the region. The...
Meth and murder in rural America
When Chris Kraus became fixated on a murder case in a Minnesotan town, she decided to try her hand at a true crime novel ... but the project soon evol...
Meet hockey’s greatest (fictional) goon
Did the Olympics get you in the hockey spirit? If not, here’s a book that certainly will. Searching for Terry Punchout by Tyler Hellard is a novel abo...
What does “worldly” mean to a Jehovah’s Witness?
Tamara Jong grew up going door-to-door for the Jehovah’s Witnesses … and her new memoir, Worldly Girls, is all about breaking away from the faith. For...
Justice for Murder Bimbo!
Murder Bimbo is a new book about a sex worker-turned assassin … and it’s the debut novel by Rebecca Novack, a former priest-in-training. The story fol...
Need cash fast? Become a corpse bride today
If you’re worried about being lonely in the afterlife, don’t worry. Just hire a corpse bride to keep you company in the coffin! In Lindsay Wong’s new...
Why an ADHD diagnosis had this author rethinking everything
Carla Ciccone was 39 years old when she was diagnosed with ADHD. That diagnosis changed everything for her ... and she shares her experience in her ne...
Capitalism, dating apps and why we love Edmonton
If you’re feeling jaded by money, politics and modern dating … you’re not the only one. Conor Kerr’s new novella, Beaver Hills Forever, follows the ev...
For this author, losing an eye was “kind of enlightening”
What would you do if there was a jellyfish in your eye? And what if it started multiplying, blocking your vision completely? That’s the premise of The...
This poem is straight out of a dream
The winner of the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is the Vancouver poet Jordan Redekop-Jones. Jordan’s winning poem, Mixed Girl as Cosmogonic Myth, was inspired...
1 marriage, 2 mid-life crises … and a guy named Gluten
“You’ve changed” isn’t necessarily something you want to hear … especially when you’re trying to keep a marriage alive. That’s the premise of Ian Will...
How far would you go for your family?
Would you steal? Would you kill? In Megha Majumdar’s new novel, A Guardian and a Thief, a mother prepares to escape a city in the midst of climate col...