Scott Alexander Howard on border-crossings across time
Kobo in Conversation
Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Scott Alexander Howard, winner of the and author of . It’s the story of Odile Ozanne, a young girl who lives in a small village in a valley. In the next valley over, in the west, there is an identical village where events from 20 years ago are taking place, and in the valley to the east there is another village where it’s 20 years in the future. Occasionally, and under the strictest controls and in a disguise rendering them unidentifiable, people will visit the other valleys, looking forward, or backward in time. One day, visitors...
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Rob Franklin's upwardly-mobile, downwardly-spiraling Great Black Hope
Kobo in Conversation
Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Rob Franklin. His debut novel is about a young man, named Smith, who gets arrested for cocaine possession on his way home from a party at the end of an oppressively hot New York summer. Smith is Black, and he’s queer; he’s also a Stanford graduate and his family back in Atlanta is, as they say, not without means. As Smith’s court date looms and he enters treatment for addiction, he’s grieving the sudden and tragic death of a friend.
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Timothy Caulfield and The Certainty Illusion - Live at KoboCon 2025!
Kobo in Conversation
This past spring Kobo held an event for employees called KoboCon. It was an opportunity for the staff of Kobo to share interesting things they're working on and some big ideas they're grappling with. One of those big ideas was how the information ecosystem affects readers, writers, and individuals coming together at work, so we brought in expert explainer and debunker Timothy Caulfield to talk about it through the lens of his latest book . While we take a little break for the summer, we're bringing you that on-stage conversation now.
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Wally Lamb waded into autobiography for The River is Waiting
Kobo in Conversation
Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Wally Lamb, the author of novels including She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, and The Hour I First Believed. His new novel, his first in nearly a decade, is The River is Waiting. It’s about Corbin Ledbetter, Corby to his friends, husband to Emily and father to twins Maisie and Niko. Corby’s at the precipice of mid-life when he makes a terrible, terrible mistake. It’s the kind of mistake most of us would struggle to imagine ever coming back from, but that’s what Corby has to figure out as he endures punishments from society, family,...
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Eliza Reid on paying homage to the difficult work of diplomacy
Kobo in Conversation
Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with Eliza Reid, author of the novel Death on the Island. It’s a mystery set on a remote island in Iceland where a dinner party of diplomats turns fatal for the deputy ambassador of Canada. And it just so happens that the elements of this story—Iceland, diplomacy, and the perils of being a Canadian out in the world—these are all things that Ottawa-born Eliza Reid knows well from the 8 years she spent as the First Lady of Iceland.
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Aaron Kreuter finds new possibilities in summer camp
Kobo in Conversation
Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with poet and novelist Aaron Kreuter. His new book is Lake Burntshore, which tells the story of the summer of 2013 at a Canadian Jewish summer camp that’s just fired a several camp counsellors after they're caught smoking (then-illegal) marijuana. The enterprising son of the camp's owner springs into action and comes up with a surprising solution to their sudden staffing needs: a group of charming and very young Israeli soldiers.
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Elyse Graham tells the story of WWII's scholarly spies
Kobo in Conversation
Host Michael Tamblyn spoke with Elyse Graham, author of . It’s the true story of how the United States, as war raged in Europe, quickly built an organization staffed with intelligence officers recruited not from the military—but from the ranks of the bookworms—the academics, librarians, and archivists found in universities and libraries across the US. After being trained in the art of espionage (and mortal combat) they were sent off to faraway places as exceptionally well-read spies.
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Liann Zhang on satirizing social media influencers from the inside
Kobo in Conversation
Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Liann Zang, author of the new novel Julie Chan is Dead. In it, Julie Chan is in fact very much alive but her estranged twin sister Chloe, a wildly successful social media influencer, has suddenly died and it just so happens that Julie is for just a moment the only person in the world who knows Chloe is dead. So she decides to pick up and start living Chloe’s apparently fabulous life, letting the world believe it's Julie Chan's body being carried out of Chloe’s apartment on a stretcher.
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Jon Hickey on the politics of apocalypse
Kobo in Conversation
Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Jon Hickey, author of . It’s takes place in an Anishinaabe reservation called Passage Rouge Nation during the last weekend before a Tribal Presidential election. Incumbent president Mack Beck is coasting to another term happily overseeing tribal governmental matters as well as the Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel when his rival, activist Gloria Hawkins begins gaining steam in the home stretch. Gloria’s campaign, by the way, is being run by Mack’s estranged sister Layla, while his own campaign is run by his childhood friend and local boy made good...
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Claire Cameron on what she's learned from studying monsters
Kobo in Conversation
Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Claire Cameron, author of the novels and . Her new book is . It’s a memoir of family, of illness, of love, and the author’s ongoing fascination with a 1991 bear attack that happened in a wilderness she knows so well.
info_outlineHost Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Anne Fleming, author of Curiosities, which was a finalist for the 2024 Giller Prize. It’s the story of how five fictional 17th century manuscripts uncovered by an amateur historian named Anne paint a picture of a handful of unusual lives.