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Nathan Maharaj spoke with Jamaluddin Aram, 2024 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize-winner and author of the novel Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday about his new collection of essays called The Blood of Things: A Love Letter to Afghanistan.  Jamaluddin Aram on writing beyond lines of division

Producer and Kobo in Conversation co-host Nathan Maharaj enlisted the help of Kobo's Deandra Lalonde to guide readers through this overwhelming fall 2026 season of new books. Here are all the books Deandra and Nathan covered in this episode. Series A Court of Splintered Harmony - Sarah J. Maas Threshing Day - Rebecca Yarros Dead Beat - Leigh Bardugo Victorious - VE Schwab Literary The Disappearers - Marlon James Ply - Hernan Diaz Partita - Barbara Kingsolver American Hagwon - Min Jin Lee The Radiance - Ayad Akhtar Buzz-bound Exit Party - Emily St. John Mandel Life Out of Order - Audrey Niffenegger The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman - Deesha Philyaw Hollywood, Ending - John Green Hollow Bones - Jodi Picoult The Pirate Queen - Ariel Lawhon Switzy - Emma Cline The Sorceress of Sky Serpents - Eden Robinson Nonfiction Swan Song - Charles Spencer The Vanishing Family - Robert Kolker The American Way of Killing - Malcolm Gladwell Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea - Emily Wilson Redwood - Ben MacIntyre Deandra's faves so far Taipei Story - R. F. Kuang Broken Rival - Tessa Bailey The Disappearers - Marlon James More links at: Kobo's big fall 2026 books round up!

Michael Tamblyn spoke with TJ Klune, author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, and the Extraordinaries YA series, to name just a few of his many books. TJ's latest book is We Burned So Bright. It's a story about a couple, Don and Rodney, who set out on a road trip to lay their shared pain to rest while all around them, people are dealing with the very imminent end of the world.  And to WATCH Michael and TJ's chat, check out the video version: https://youtu.be/owvD19D0_6Q  Is TJ Klune a little bit better every day?

Michael Tamblyn spoke with novelist Shari Lapena. Since her 2016 novel The Couple Next Door, she's been known as one of the masters of domestic noir. In her newest book Getting Away With Murder, her 10th suspense novel in as many years, we get financial precarity, unlikeable yet relatable characters, mistrust mixed with intimacy, and all the page-turning qualities that readers have come to expect in a Shari Lapena novel.  Shari Lapena on writing a murder mystery where we already know whodunit

Nadia Odunayo didn't set out to create the leading competitor to social reading app GoodReads. But somewhere along the way while building her website & app The StoryGraph she discovered that for a lot of folks that's exactly what she'd done. In this episode of our Booktalking series, Kobo in Conversation hosts Michael Tamblyn and Nathan Maharaj are joined by Nadia to find out about StoryGraph's origins and where Nadia's taking it in the future. Kobo first met Nadia back in 2021: read our interview Learn about all the ways you can keep track of the books you read, including on your Kobo with StoryGraph: The best ways to track your reading | Kobo Books Blog Join the Kobo in Conversation reading challenge on StoryGraph (and get a sneak peek at the books we're reading for upcoming episodes): Read along with the Kobo in Conversation podcast | The StoryGraph

Nathan Maharaj spoke with Anita Rau Badami, author of novels including the Commonwealth Prize winning The Hero's Walk. Her new book is Asha in Her Garden. It's the story of a woman named Asha, who lives now in Montreal, but left Bangalore, India many years ago. We learn about her childhood, her children, her friends, and the life she's made for herself.  Anita Rau Badami on writing a character who can't stop wounding the people she loves

Nathan Maharaj spoke with musician and novelist David Baerwald, author of The Fire Agent. It's a story spanning the world wars of the 20th century viewed through the eyes of Ernst Baerwald, a bright and idealistic young man who finds himself at the frontiers of chemistry and war. David Baerwald on feeling his way through history

In the spirit of "Christmas in July," we're presenting a special live episode of Kobo in Conversation from the Toronto International Festival of Authors' inaugural Ever After, the romance book festival. This was recorded back in November 2025, and though it deals with some extremely seasonal themes, we don't mind a little Christmas in July and we thought you might be into it as well.  For a session called "Snowflakes and Sparks," Michael Tamblyn spoke with authors Marissa Stapley and Karma Brown writing under their pen names Julia McKay and Kristine Winters, about what Christmas and Christmas Romance means to them, as well as their COVID-era collaborations as Maggie Knox. LIVE from Ever After, with Julia McKay & Kristine Winters Join the Kobo in Conversation reading challenge on StoryGraph

Michael Tamblyn spoke with Patrick Radden Keefe, who has been writing for the New Yorker since 2006 and is the author of nonfiction bestsellers including Empire of Pain and Say Nothing. His latest book is London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth. They were joined by an intimate studio audience. Patrick Radden Keefe on London's dark descent

Nathan Maharaj spoke with the novelist and journalist Jowita Bydlowska about her new book Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After. It's a frank, unflinching recounting of the years following the publication of her first book, the memoir Drunk Mom. And it's a thoughtful, fearless meditation on the concept of shame.  Jowita Bydlowska on becoming an expert on shame by accident

For this special bonus episode of Kobo in Conversation, producer and co-host Nathan Maharaj was joined by one of Kobo's booksellers (and frequent Staff Picks contributor), Deandra Lalonde. They sort through the buzziest books to take along to the beach, the books landing in the next few weeks that you won't want to miss, and how best to bring a little Hollywood into your summer reading this year. Books mentioned: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke Whistler by Ann Patchett Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune From 2023: Carley Fortune on summer love and second chances Heartstopper #6 by Alice Oseman Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson The Odyssey by Homer There's Only One Sin in Hollywood by Rasheed Newson On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle And check out dozens more summer picks HERE.

Nathan Maharaj spoke with novelist Sharon Bala, author of the award-winning 2018 novel, The Boat People. Her new book is called Good Guys. It's about a nearly bankrupt international aid charity called Children of the World, and how their stumbling into the good graces of an A-list celebrity raises a lot of money, and a lot of questions about who the good guys really are. You can watch their conversation too: https://youtu.be/6_YeVizUPr4  Sharon Bala on the absurdity of so-called Good Guys

This week we're bringing you a conversation Michael Tamblyn had in 2021 with Natalie Zina Walschots about her extremely fun novel called Hench. It's about a world where superheroes are out there saving the day in super ways, while villains, who are a lot like you and me, run organizations bent on taking over the world while also trying to keep scores up on Glassdoor. Natalie's just released a sequel to Hench, and it's called Villain.    [From 2021:] We learned about some of the fantastical worlds Natalie enjoyed exploring as a young reader "often for sheer escapism," as well as the writers she drew inspiration from while starting out as a writer herself, and as a lifelong student of supervillainy: Robert O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and Z for Zachariah High fantasy including J. R. R. Tolkien, but also Shannara, Dragonlance, and "anything with a wizard holding an orb on the cover" or "a skeleton holding a sword" Christian Bök, Karen Solie, bp Nichol, and other writers "doing super weird things with language and the structural materiality of language..." Soon I Will Be Invincible "was the first book I read from the perspective of a supervillain." "Paradise Lost is really important to me ... the relationship between Satan the adversary to the world informs the way I write villains." Neil Gaiman's Sandman, where "a character who's a villain in one context becomes the protagonist in another." Vicious by V E Schwab Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and various writings of Catherynne M. Valente for their "messed up fairy tale feel."

Nathan Maharaj spoke with physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author of the 2021 book The Disordered Cosmos, a highly personal reflection on the human and inherently flawed practice of scientific inquiry and her career as a Black Jewish scientist. Her new book is The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie. In it she explains to readers, what's really going on with quantum cats? what does a light-swallowing black hole actually look like? what can we learn about quantum theory from the Afrofuturist jazz musician Sun Ra? —and a whole lot more. Why Chanda Prescod-Weinstein sees hope in cosmic curiosity

Hosts Michael Tamblyn and Nathan Maharaj dove deep on the controversy around the book Shy Girl, which was cancelled by its publisher who alleged it was largely AI-generated. Links on Shy Girl: The video from January 2026 that seems to have led to Shy Girl's cancellation: i'm pretty sure this book is ai slop - YouTube Publishing news journalist Alexandra Alter on the controversy over the cancellation of Shy Girl: A.I. Is Writing Fiction. Publishers Are Unprepared. - The New York Times Publishing industry analyst Thad McIlroy on what NYT omitted from their piece: I Broke the Year's Biggest Literary Story. The New York Times Took the Credit | The Walrus Two very "inside baseball" overviews of what happened: The New Publishing Standard's deep dive on Shy Girl Publisher's Weekly industry analysis What might be the last extant page on any of Hachette's sites about the book: Shy Girl: Read the femgore revenge novel that EVERYONE is talking about! by Mia Ballard - Books - Hachette Australia Other links from this episode: Why AI detection is hard People who frequently use ChatGPT for writing tasks are accurate and robust detectors of AI-generated text - ACL Anthology (mistakenly attributed to MIT in the episode) Past episodes of this show that touched on the use of AI in book publishing: Michael bets on "AI Sally Rooney" (from October 2024) Anna Gomez enlisted AI for research assistance when writing a romance road trip (November 2024) Sean Michaels wrote a book about AI and art by using AI for parts of it (November 2023) More author interviews at kobo.com/conversation Find past Booktalking episodes here