All Episodes

Why Chanda Prescod-Weinstein sees hope in cosmic curiosity

Booktalking - All about Shy Girl and whether AI in publishing is more like plutonium or salt

How Heather Marshall brings readers into places of the past

Why Rainbow Rowell's Cherry Baby had to be her sexiest book yet

Tara Gereaux on finding the words for an unspoken identity

How Eliana Ramage set her sights on the stars for her debut novel

George Newman on getting good at bad ideas—so great ideas can happen

Leanne Toshiko Simpson on self-care and writing a prize-winning rom-com

Booktalking - Publishers wannabe booksellers, the book business's third rail, dark matter sales data, and more

Dan Rubinstein on finding community on waterfronts

Souvankham Thammavongsa on writing a woman at the centre of her own story

Eric Smith and Andrew Bricker on 30 years of the Toronto Raptors

MORE of the best books we read in 2025

The best books we read in 2025

Miriam Toews on her new memoir, and the surprising truth of good comedy

Charlotte McConaghy found fear on the Wild Dark Shore

Julian Brave NoiseCat on storytelling in the trickster tradition

Mona Awad on returning to the world of Bunny

Booktalking - Authors v. Anthropic (and Apple), indie booksellers in & out of trouble, and more

Brian Stewart reports on the golden age of being a foreign correspondent

Antonio Michael Downing's literary journey into the South

Scott Alexander Howard on border-crossings across time

Rob Franklin's upwardly-mobile, downwardly-spiraling Great Black Hope

Timothy Caulfield and The Certainty Illusion - Live at KoboCon 2025!

Wally Lamb waded into autobiography for The River is Waiting

Eliza Reid on paying homage to the difficult work of diplomacy

Aaron Kreuter finds new possibilities in summer camp

Elyse Graham tells the story of WWII's scholarly spies

Liann Zhang on satirizing social media influencers from the inside

Jon Hickey on the politics of apocalypse

Claire Cameron on what she's learned from studying monsters

Nita Prose on saying goodbye to Molly Gray

Booktalking - The book Meta can't face, billionaire brainworms, fact-checking and fair use

Nate DiMeo on shaking up the past in The Memory Palace

David A. Robertson and his little monsters go to uncomfortable places

Christina Cooke wrote the 90s story only she could tell

MORE of the best books we read in 2024

The best books we read in 2024

Dr. Jonathan Stea on how to mind your mental health

Anne Fleming on love stories and curiosity

Anna Gomez on the things she's picked up to write about... somewhere along the way

Joining Richard Powers on the Playground

Booktalking - NaNoWriMo's line in the sand, Robo-narration side hustles, a penguin glow-up(?), and more

katherena vermette on crafting a real story out of fakery

Jamaluddin Aram on leaving space for the reader to work

Amanda Peters on the art of thought-provoking storytelling

Keziah Weir's literary influences are no mystery to her

Rainbow Rowell wants to write about "messy" characters

Live at MOTIVE: Thrills from Start to Finish

Spending time with Maurice Vellekoop

Kobo in Conversation - Booktalking

Stephen Maher offers readers a glimpse of The Prince

Laura Tamblyn Watts on 27 essential, and uncomfortable, conversations

Anna Julia Stainsby on ugly truths, isolation, and The Afterpains

Shilpi Somaya Gowda, author of A Great Country

Journalist Michael Finkel on seeing through the eyes of The Art Thief

Kiley Reid on writing realistically about people and money

Dr. Jen Gunter on writing books about bodies for people

R. F. Kuang on seeing herself in Yellowface

R.H. Thomson on viewing wars by the light of family history

Kai Thomas conjures fiction from the history of the upper country (encore)

Ashley Audrain on bringing rage from the group chat to the page

More of the best books we read in 2023

The best books we read in 2023

Rowan Jetté Knox on learning from hard times

Alicia Elliott on telling the truth through the lens of fiction

Sean Michaels, live at TIFA 2023

Waubgeshig Rice on finding renewal at the end of the world

Naomi Klein on what she sees in "the mirror world"

Michael Crummey confronts The Adversary

Zalika Reid-Benta on becoming the "weird writer" she's always wanted to be

S. A. Cosby on finding fascination in writing a good guy

Britt Wray on bringing emotions to bear on climate science (encore)

John Vaillant sees more fire weather in the forecast

Live at MOTIVE: Global Issues on the Page

Tom Rachman on inhabiting the roles of others in The Imposters

Getting surreal with Samantha Irby

Ritu Bhasin on the good, the bad, and belonging

Ore Agbaje-Williams on writing a character who says it all out loud

Carley Fortune on summer love and second chances

David Grann on the brutal truths revealed in The Wager

Shelley Read on bringing life to quiet characters

Zoe Whittall on the truth about liars

Hua Hsu on the strange characters of memoir

Lindsay Wong tells us pleasant things about discomfort

Cherie Dimaline on connecting with the extraordinary

Jackie Lau on the Kobo Writing Life podcast

CS Richardson on writing with all the colour in the world

Kai Thomas conjures fiction from the history of the upper country

More of the best books we read in 2022

The best books we read in 2022

Harold McGee on the science of smells

Beneath the veneer with Naben Ruthnum and André Forget

Jean Hanff Korelitz, live at TIFA 2022

Marian Keyes, live at TIFA 2022

Ann-Marie MacDonald on staying open to surprise

Chief Robert Joseph on the need and desire for reconciliation

Hernan Diaz on power, truth, and Trust

Deon Meyer on The Dark Flood

Ben Mezrich's wild ride

Cory Silverberg on the right way to teach kids about sex

Elamin Abdelmahmoud wants to know everyone's elsewhere story

Riley Black on the end of the world and new beginnings

Sheila Heti on getting reacquainted with her imagination

Britt Wray on bringing emotions to bear on climate science

Stephanie Foo on writing and healing from trauma

NoViolet Bulawayo on her glorious new novel

Julia Quinn (encore)

Kathryn Schulz on love and loss

The joyful endurance of Hanif Abdurraqib

More of the best books we read in 2021

The best books we read in 2021

Bonus: Kobo Writing Life with Chloe Liese

Season 5: James S. A. Corey

Season 5: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Season 5: Janelle Shane

Season 5: Edward Rutherfurd

Season 5: Shari Lapena

Season 5: Ian Rankin

Season 5: P. Djèlí Clark

Season 4: Katie Mack

Season 4: Torrey Peters

Season 4: Steve Brusatte

Season 4: Helen Oyeyemi

Season 4: Suzanne Simard

Season 4: Natalie Zina Walschots

Season 4: Malcolm Gladwell

Season 3: Julia Quinn

Season 3: Jael Richardson

Season 3: Emily Schultz

Season 3: Joanne Vannicola

Season 3: Linden MacIntyre

Season 3: Billy-Ray Belcourt

The best books we read in 2020: Side B

The best books we read in 2020

Bonus: Kobo Writing Life with Talia Hibbert

Season 3: Marian Keyes

Season 3: Vicki Laveau-Harvie

Season 3: Eternity Martis

Season 3: Tobly McSmith

Season 3: Jared Diamond

Season 3: Eden Robinson

Bonus: Staff Picks - I'm Just a Person by Tig Notaro

Season 2: Timothy Caulfield

Bonus: Staff Picks - Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Bonus: Staff Picks - Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Season 2: Daniel Levitin

Bonus: Staff Picks - Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Bonus: Staff Picks - My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Season 2: Linwood Barclay

Bonus: Staff Picks - Dominicana by Angie Cruz

Bonus: Staff Picks - Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany

Season 2: Lori Lansens

Season 2: Lauren McKeon

Season 2: Jesse Thistle

Season 2: Robyn Doolittle

Season 2: Ann Cleeves

Season 2: Julie Evelyn Joyce

Season 2: Saeed Jones

Season 2: Ziya Tong

Season 2: Jonathan Safran Foer

Kobo's 2019 Holiday Picks

Season 1: Andrew Solomon

Season 1: Zalika Reid-Benta

Season 1: Andreas Souvaliotis

Season 1: Karen M. McManus

Season 1: Julia Shaw

Season 1: Marc Levy

Season 1: Sheena Kamal

Season 1: Craig Davidson

Season 1: Maria Qamar

Season 1: Omar El Akkad

Season 1: Mark Sakamoto

Kobo's Holiday Picks