All Episodes

Exploring the shady side of charity organizations

Can our friendships age with us?

Life of Pi author Yann Martel on the wars in your everyday

How to find hope in a funeral home

Should you be afraid of the wolf hour?

Would a tradwife influencer survive in 1855?

How do we restore our sense of wonder in media?

What does dystopia look like in the suburbs?

Is it magic … or is it Siri?

Why status and power are currency in Pakistan

The last book Julian Barnes will ever write

Is there a soundtrack to your life?

If at first you break up … try, try again?

How long could you lie about who you are?

Why Tayari Jones fights for her stories

Inside Toronto’s most notorious women’s prison

For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival

What is boyhood to a Palestinian teen?

Strip club … or culture hub?

Rage and love at the end of apartheid

The beauty and despair of Appalachia

Meth and murder in rural America

Meet hockey’s greatest (fictional) goon

What does “worldly” mean to a Jehovah’s Witness?

Justice for Murder Bimbo!

Need cash fast? Become a corpse bride today

Why an ADHD diagnosis had this author rethinking everything

Capitalism, dating apps and why we love Edmonton

For this author, losing an eye was “kind of enlightening”

This poem is straight out of a dream

1 marriage, 2 mid-life crises … and a guy named Gluten

How far would you go for your family?

Buffoon or genius? What makes a cult leader?

For Louise Penny, stories come from hurt

Revisiting Writers & Company: Happy 250th, Jane Austen!

So your whole family thinks you’re reincarnated — what now?

All I want for Christmas … is a fake boyfriend?

Video games are radical. Not in the way you think

Three writers on the monsters that made them

A priest and an artist walk into a bar

Anarchists have bigger hearts than you think

John Irving’s new novel returns to a familiar orphanage

This poem took 16 straight hours to write

Here’s what you have wrong about teen moms

Chris Hadfield — from astronaut to author

A fictional ad agency — and its very real ghosts

Kiran Desai’s novel is worth the 20-year wait

What is a stag dance?

Zadie Smith never thought she’d tell this story

Can your nail tech throw a mean right hook?

Ian McEwan has hope for humanity — here’s why

Why Mona Awad gave the Bunnies a say

Where do North Korean spies go for dinner?

Think Stonehenge rocks? So does Ken Follett

What is extreme caretaking?

R.F. Kuang raises a little hell

What would it take to become the first Cherokee astronaut?

​What happens to fiction in times of war?

Why this comics legend is just getting started

Who was the woman Kafka loved?

Reliving the soundtrack of the 2000s

Why this Pulitzer Prize winner is done with writing books

Death, sex, money … and podcasting?

Bookends Highlights: Why we never shut up about our literary prizes

Bookends Bonus: What do you see in the mirror?

Bookends Bonus: Redefining what counts as a Canadian literary classic from Commotion

Bernardine Evaristo: In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel

Bookends Highlights: The language of comics with 5 masters of the craft

Bookends Bonus: Cartoonist and writer Gabrielle Drolet on Q with Tom Power

3 writers on finding their voices — and the power of personal stories

What makes Montreal a transgender city?

Weaving a story of family trauma and celebrating the beauty in survival

For Indigenous players, ice hockey is a ceremony of its own

Taylor Jenkins Reid is among the stars — on and off the page

Alison Bechdel on making money and seeing Fun Home in a new light

David A. Robertson puts stories at the heart of reconciliation

An opera singer gives voice to the Grenadian revolution

When young men murder, what can we learn?

Music, sex and finding the soundtrack to queer joy

Weightlifting made Casey Johnston stronger — in muscle and mind

Fans asked for another happy ending — Carley Fortune delivered

Bookends Introduces | Understood: Who Broke the Internet

Ocean Vuong finds beauty in a fast food shift

Writing about catastrophe gives Madeleine Thien courage

Fighting for an unlawful love in Uganda

NOT CLICKBAIT! She stole her dead twin sister’s identity!?

What if your dreams could land you in jail?

Meet the winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize

Why you can’t forget your first love

Why growing up is so hard — and why Canadians are so funny

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s triumphant return to fiction

Scaachi Koul calls herself a professional ex-wife

Yes, tuberculosis is still a thing — John Green tells us why

Mapping the stories of Uganda’s abducted children

Kate Bush spins a magical story on her album Hounds of Love

Curtis Sittenfeld is fascinated by fame

Emma Donoghue boards a train destined for disaster

Why Heather O’Neill believes in magic

Getting to know Canada’s king of suspense

How Frida Kahlo and Sylvia Plath inspired a novel about chronic pain

We can still avoid a tech dystopia — here’s how

In the Caribbean, secret lives come at a cost

Pitbull, Scarface and a whale walk into a book

Emily Austin: Would life be easier as a rat? And other ways to escape adulthood

Nnedi Okorafor: Bringing a writer to life in Death of the Author

Jack Wang: Reimagining the lost stories of Chinese Canadians during WWII

Helen Phillips: In a world run by AI, what makes us human?

Daniel Aleman: Loneliness inspired a novel about a Grindr date gone fatally wrong

Kate Gies: Reclaiming her body after years of medical trauma

Emma Knight: 'Bad' mothers make good stories — and are more true-to-life

Imani Perry: Tracing blue through Black American life

Chris Ware: Inside the sketchbooks of a comics master

Amy Lin: Widowed at 31, she looks for the beauty in grief

Rumaan Alam: How would you spend a billion dollars?

Rachel Robb: Exploring reconciliation and the natural world

Judith Butler: Breaking down why people fear gender

Zoe Whittall: Why heartbreak is a valid form of grief

Adrian Tomine: Answering his readers’ burning questions

Bookends: Highlights from 2024

Samantha Harvey: In conversation with Eleanor Wachtel

Bryan Lee O’Malley: 20 years of Scott Pilgrim

Nita Prose: The Maid series returns with a Christmas twist

Charles Burns: Why the comics icon keeps returning to teenage angst

Pasha Malla: Parodying a wellness resort with horror and humour

Sarah Leavitt: Illustrating grief too wide for words

Nalo Hopkinson: How Caribbean folktales inspired her fantastical novel, Blackheart Man

Leslie Jamison: Capturing Peggy Guggenheim in fiction and honouring a friend's dream

Teresa Wong: Illustrating her family's past — in all its ordinary and epic moments

Paula Hawkins: Exploring the dark side of the art world in new thriller The Blue Hour

Anne Fleming: Why her latest novel is a gender-bending tale of witchcraft and forbidden love

Eric Chacour: Exploring the power of familial expectations and forbidden love

Rachel Kushner: In Booker Prize finalist Creation Lake, an agent provocateur faces deep questions about how to live

Alan Hollinghurst: Coming of age in Britain and writing through the gay gaze

Fawn Parker: Blending her own grief with fiction in new novel Hi, It’s Me

Erica McKeen: Using horror and surrealism to explore grief, care and love in new novel Cicada Summer

Jeff VanderMeer: How his blockbuster Southern Reach series reflects our own fight against climate change

V.V. Ganeshananthan: Exploring the complexity of Sri Lanka's civil war in her prize-winning novel, Brotherless Night

Corinna Chong: Uncovering long buried truths against the backdrop of Alberta's Badlands

Jenny Heijun Wills: Sharing her journey of transracial adoption and self-discovery in her moving essay collection

Matt Haig: A surprise inheritance, a magical island and why he's embracing hope — in fiction and life

Aldona Dziedziejko: Poetic reflections on land and loss wins 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize

Casey McQuiston: Celebrating queer love and joy and navigating the future of romance

Tanya Talaga: Searching for her great-great grandmother — a story of family, truth and survival

Alison McCreesh: Exploring the magic and nuance of life in the North in her latest graphic novel

Aysegul Savas: Finding home in foreignness and capturing the uncertainty of early adulthood

Sloane Crosley: Losing her best friend and sharing her grief with the world

David Huebert: Exploring the complexity of our relationship with oil through fiction

Heather O'Neill: How motherhood and artistry intersect in the bestselling writer's life and work

Kaveh Akbar: Finding meaning in sobriety and writing his bestseller, Martyr!

Introducing Bookends with Mattea Roach