Heather O'Neill is an icon in Canadian literature who has won a ton of awards. And now she has a new novel. It’s called The Capital of Dreams and it’s about the influence of art and literature on our lives. It follows 14-year-old Sofia as she hunts for her mother’s lost manuscript during the chaos of war. Heather speaks to Mattea Roach about her la…

Iranian American writer Kaveh Akbar and his novel Martyr! are everywhere these days. Martyr! made the New York Times bestseller list and several summer reading lists, including Barack Obama's. Drawing on Kaveh's own experience with addiction and recovery, it's about Cyrus, a 20-something Iranian American poet who’s in the early years of sobriety. C…

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. Beginning Sept. 8 on CBC.

For the conclusion of Writers and Company, the tables are turned and author Madeleine Thien interviews Eleanor Wachtel. Recorded at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal last spring, Thien speaks with Eleanor about her early life in Montreal, memorable moments from her career and more. They also look back on Eleanor's conv…

The Scottish author reflects on the stories she grew up with, the influence of feminism and how time moves in circular patterns. Ali Smith has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize four times. Her 2014 novel How to Be Both won the Women's Prize for fiction and the Costa Book Award for novel. She spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2018 about the first tw…

The American architect, known for challenging the idea of form, reflects on his life and the experiences that shape his work, from his days as a lieutenant in the Korean War to his time studying in Europe. He founded the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and is the author of several books on architecture and design, including Lateness. P…

The American novelist draws on her experience growing up in an interracial family in her edgy, prize-winning fiction. Raised with an acute black consciousness, during a time when "'mixed' wasn't an option; you were either black or white," Senna brings an awareness — and astute analysis — of class, race and identity to all her writing. She spoke wit…

Novelist and biographer Francine du Plessix Gray reflects on the fascinating lives of her parents in her memoir, Them, which follows their journey from the artistic Russian émigré community of 1930s Paris to the top of New York's high society. The memoir won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Francine du Plessix Gray was…

Born during the Depression in Lockport, New York, Joyce Carol Oates started writing as a teen and has since written more than one hundred books, many of them portraying the darkness of American society. Her writing has earned her virtually every major American literary prize, as well as Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Grand Prix in 2012. After accepting…

The Indian journalist and novelist writes stories that are autobiographical and revealing. Kumar joined Eleanor Wachtel in 2018 to talk about his book Immigrant, Montana - a mix of fiction, memory, politics and the pursuit of romance. Kumar's new novel is called My Beloved Life.

Even though Edna O’Brien left Ireland more than 50 years ago, the texture and atmosphere of the country continue to permeate her work. Her first seven books were banned or suppressed in Ireland. In fact her debut novel, The Country Girls, was burned in her home parish for depicting the ambitions and sexual desires of young women. Today, O'Brien is …

In 2018, Eleanor Wachtel went to New York City to interview one of North America's most renowned and daring creative pioneers, Laurie Anderson. The multimedia artist and musician had just published her retrospective book, All the Things I Lost in the Flood, inspired by the devastation of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which destroyed Anderson's archive o…

This week, for Pride season, the Oscar-nominated playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner. Known most recently for his movie collaborations with Steven Spielberg, including Lincoln, Westside Story and The Fablemans, Kushner's breakout hit was his epic play Angels in America, the winner of multiple Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize, among many other awards…

This week, American Canadian novelist Claire Messud. Throughout her career and in her new book, This Strange Eventful History, one of TIME’s most anticipated of 2024, Messud draws on her own family's history, especially that of her French Algerian father. In 2001 she spoke with Eleanor about her novel The Last Life, which traces three generations o…

In honour of the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Eleanor Wachtel revisits her 2005 conversation with one of his biographers, Nicholas Murray.

Germany's Jenny Erpenbeck is the winner of the International Booker Prize 2024 for her novel Kairos, translated by Michael Hofmann. She spoke with Eleanor Wachtel, who chaired the International Booker Prize jury, in 2015 about The End of Days, an imaginative story that spans the 20th century through the eyes of a character who lives multiple versio…

The British born author moved to New York in 2008 to write a book set in sixteenth-century India. But he was drawn to write about America, focusing on life in the city and the Mojave Desert in his two novels White Tears and Gods Without Men. Hari Kunzru spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2017 from New York…

Jackie Kay’s adoption as a baby, and investigation into her birth parents — a Nigerian father and Scottish mother — give her an original take on Scotland and cultural identity. Jackie Kay talked about her uncomfortable discoveries upon meeting her birth parents, as well as her two books, Wish I Was Here and Darling: New and Selected Poems, when she…

In 2004, just before she won the Scotiabank Giller Prize (for the second time) for her story collection, Runaway, Alice Munro met Eleanor Wachtel at a restaurant near the author's home to discuss her new book, her interest in writing about infidelity and sex and her life growing up in Wingham, Ontario. The acclaimed Canadian short story writer, and…

Paul Auster spoke with Eleanor Wachtel about his novel Oracle Night, the ways in which reality and fiction blend and how coincidences shape our lives at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal in 2004. The writer of The New York Trilogy, Leviathan and 4 3 2 1, among many other books, was best known for his postmodernist fiction and meta-n…

From his childhood in San Francisco's sand dunes to sitting in French cafes with Philip Glass and Samuel Beckett, Richard Serra reflects on his life and work during a 2011 conversation with Eleanor Wachtel. Best known for his evocative and monumental steel structures, you can find Serra's sculptural works all over the world, including his piece Tit…

This week on Writers and Company, British poet Raymond Antrobus. Antrobus spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2019 about his collection, The Perseverance, which explores his complicated relationship with his late father and growing up deaf.

This week, Irish novelist Colm Toibin discusses his short story collection, Mothers and Sons, which explores the unspoken and shifting dynamics in these relationships. Toibin is the author of Brooklyn, which was made into an Oscar-nominated feature film starring Saoirse Ronan, as well as Nora Webster, The Magician and more. His latest novel, Long I…

To celebrate poetry month, a conversation with one of England’s greatest living poets, Alice Oswald. Winner of the 2017 international Griffin Poetry Prize for her book Falling Awake, Oswald's work explores the relationship between human life and the natural world. Her latest title, Nobody, is a book-length poem inspired by Homer’s Odyssey.…

This week on Writers and Company, Anita Desai — one of India's most celebrated and successful writers. Over the course of her career, which spans five decades, Desai has written several novels and has been nominated for the Booker Prize three times. Eleanor Wachtel spoke to her on stage at Montreal's Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival …

James Runcie's novel, The Great Passion, imagines a year in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, culminating with the first performance of his St. Matthew Passion in Leipzig, Germany during Easter 1727. Told through the eyes of a fictional, 13-year-old student, it explores the man behind the legendary composer: an ambitious working musician and fathe…

This week, two conversations with the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir The Return. In 2011, Libyan British author Hisham Matar spoke with Eleanor Wachtel about his childhood living under Gadhafi’s dictatorship and the search for his father, a political dissident who was imprisoned. Then, from 2020, Matar reflects on his memoir The Return…

This week on Writers and Company from the Archives, Irish authors Michael Collins, Claire Keegan, Colum McCann and Nuala O'Faolain. They spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2003 onstage at the Victoria Literary Arts Festival.

Download the Podcast Here The Season Finale of Two Absolute Bookends – Chapter 30 of the way the Stars Fall: Rebirth. Back on the tranquillity, Sans Hollister and with a Popsicle alien Tona, Jack has a mental breakdown, fails to go through a wormhole, cries, destroys the Rokarii Fleet then passes out. Waking up in the infirmary, he spends the rest …

Download the Podcast Here In the penultimate chapter 29 we have a fiery conclusion to the action we’ve been building to for chapters. Tiberius busts into the room where Jack is getting his insides made outsides by Tona, a three way fight ensues, and after Tona suddenly remember who she is, she gets knocked unconscious. Jack and Tiberius continue to…

Download the Podcast Here As the book nears its end, we find ourselves back aboard the Turmoil to find out what our old buddy Tiberius has been up to. It can actually be summarised very quickly. He takes the Ilmarian fleets, which now all have warp drives somehow, and jumps right into the middle of the fight we left the Tranquility in last week, wh…

Download the Podcast Here It’s all action aboard the tranquillity for Chapter 27 of The Way The Stars Fall: Rebirth. As they approach the wormhole, the Rokarii fleet from a few chapters ago flies out to meet them. Don’t think about the logistics of that, because they make no sense. We then have a big old spaceship fight with broadsides, ruse cruise…

Download the Podcast Here The last chapter blew chunks, and chapter 26 isn’t any better. A short chapter that is still far too long considering literally nothing of interest happens. We’re back on the tranquillity with jack and Hollister, and we get to enjoy Logistics the Musical as they talk about repairs, food and ammunition while slowly flying t…

Download the Podcast Here Welp, that didn’t last long. After being comparatively positive about chapter 24, chapter 25 turned out to be an abortion even by the usual standards of this book. We spend the whole chapter with the Rokarii, where Tona and Queen Vilxena discuss their retarded plans to conquer the universe and milk jack for DNA, then Tona …

Download the Podcast Here This time on Two Absolute Bookends we get a chapter of literally nothing, albeit nothing written better that any of the action we’ve had recently. Tiberius returns back to the Imperator for a chat after everything went wrong in his attempt to capture the Tranquillity and fight the Rokarii at the same time. However, being a…

Download the Podcast Here This time on Two Absolute Bookends we get some action as Tiberius and his fleet finally interact with jack and the Rokarii in the past... Just roll with it. Needless to say, as this is TWTSF, everyone is retarded. The tranquillity is in a bad way from the pursuing Rokarii (though there wasn’t even mention of an active purs…

Download the Podcast Here Back again with a little less down time to welcome in the New Year, your bookends this week join Captain Tiberius of the turmoil, where after like 10 chapters we finally have Tiberius’s story intersect with Jack and the Tranquillity again. The chapter is bloody boring, Tiberius arrives in the system with the wormhole, blow…

Download the Podcast Here It’s been a long long time Bookend Friends. Not only did we have eight episodes of sonic high school madness, but we had Peter being an absolute useless piece of shit when it came to editing for most of November and December, but here we are, just in time for new years, back in the ITF Tranquillity where we belong with Jac…

Download the Podcast Here We did it guys! Your two bookends are finally finished with Sonic High School and can move on with the important things in life. Eight episodes were about 7 more than I wanted to do after the first week, but we’re nothing if not dedicated to this stupidity. For such a long chapter, not too much happens. Tails interrupts Kn…

Download the Podcast Here It’s the penultimate episode on Sonic High School your bookends will ever do. This week we’ll be reading Chapters 23 and 24, it’s been 7 episodes on this abortion of a fanfic, and my god does it feel like many, many more. Shadow the hedgehog finds out the cause of his funeral faux pas was due to missing a Ultra Chaos Emera…

Download the Podcast Here Spelunking in the caves beneath the mountains of madness yet again, your Bookend Boys Peter and Louis read chapters 20-22 of the twisted fever dream that is Sonic High school, with the end looming tantalisingly close. After being confronted with the apparent cheating of his true GirlFriend (sic) Amy, Sonic abandons her to …

Download the Podcast Here It’s that time again bookend fans, where your boys Peter and Louis take it upon themselves to tackle chapters 17-19 of Sonic High School, even though nobody asked them to and frankly everyone would be happier if they just stopped. This time Sonic is forced to thank a deaf lunch woman for her house breaking skills by puttin…

Download the Podcast Here Join us friends; high school calls. However, while our spirits are willing, our minds are gradually being reduced to the consistency of good old Grandma Bookend’s famous kedgeree dish. This week we read chapters 13-16 of the McDonalds endorsed masterpiece Sonic High School, where oh so much happens... Shadow goes on a driv…

Download the Podcast Here This is bad bookend fans. With Peter and Louis less than halfway through Sonic High school their minds have already frayed to dangerous levels. Send help, or possibly ISIS, to put them out of their misery. In the text Rouge gives birth to Knuckle’s baby (to the surprise of Espio, who was trying to covertly abort the baby s…

Download the Podcast Here This week your bookends continue their trip into the heart of darkness that is the insanity of Sonic High School. Where Bats and Chameleons have sex in science hats, and anything is possible. Together we learn high tier sex moves from a horny chameleon, Louis has a mental breakdown when he invents a new word for his penis …

Download the Podcast Here This week your bookends start their fan fiction odyssey into the twisted world of Sonic High School, where, against everyone’s better judgement, we will be spending the next few weeks. Join us in our utter bewilderment as two grown men with very little knowledge of the Sonic franchise read about Sonic having ball problems …

Download the Podcast Here Join your Two Absolute Bookends in Chapter 20 of The Way The Stars Fall: Rebirth where the Tranquility go back 50000 years into the past, and nobody really cares, jack decided to try rescuing Tona against all good reason and Jack goes on a ‘Snatch & Grab’ with the trading ships crap marines – Starfire Squad. Huwah! Their p…

Download the Podcast Here Join your Two Absolute Bookends in Chapter 19 of The Way The Stars Fall: Rebirth where the Team escapes from the insurrectionist ambush with minimal effort, despite not standing a chance. Meanwhile Tona undergoes a horrific transformation into a Rokarii for reasons never adequately explained. A lot happens very quickly thi…

Download the Podcast Here Join your Two Absolute Bookends in Chapter 18 of The Way The Stars Fall: Rebirth where Tona is recovering from her Rokarii shanking, but doesn’t let that mar her perfect stomach, Jack is keeping her company rather than captaining, Roxy is introduced then killed and Hollister doesn’t stand a chance. Not much really happens …

Download the Podcast Here Join your Two Absolute Bookends in Chapter 17 of The Way The Stars Fall: Rebirth while Jack leads a team of his trading ship’s crack commandos to rescue the inexplicably not dead Tona from the clutches of a very confused Alien Hive Mind. It’s far less exciting than it sounds. Herein we discuss the trend of overly humanised…