Another Book on the Shelf

In Episode 128, Gen and Jette team up with one of their favourite local publishers, House of Anansi Press, to read The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird. It's the second book of poetry for the pod and we absolutely loved it.
Show Notes
House of Anansi's namesake comes from the spider god of West-African tradition, Kwaku Anansi, who created the world.
House of Anansi is located in Toronto. Be sure to check out their sister imprint, Groundwood Books, for children's and young adult lit.
If you're looking for the book version of the annual CBC Massey Lectures, it's House of Anansi you want!
The All + Flesh was published on August 8 and is available for purchase.
The other book of poetry we talked about on the pod is Because the Sun by Sarah Burgoyne, published by our other fave indie publisher, Coach House.
Our next episode is a book club episode! We'll be talking about Bear by Marian Engel (also published by House of Anansi). It's going to be an interesting one!
If you haven't already, take a look at the Narcisse snake pits in Manitoba, but be warned! It is very much a writing pit of snakes.
Other House of Anansi Episodes
20: House of Anansi Press 2019 Spring Books
39: House of Anansi New Releases
43: You Are Not What We Expected – Interview with Sidura Ludwig
70: A Boring Wife Settles the Score by Marie-Renée Lavoie
97: A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm
Other Book Mentioned
I Am Still Too Much by Brandi Bird
The Rez Sisters by Thomson Highway
Paper House by Dominique Fortier

It's time for another hang out episode! In this episode, Gen and Jette talk about what they've been up to and what they've been reading (actually so much!). We may be ready for fall already, but we're making the most of summer while it's still here.
Show Notes
Check out our latest blog post, Top 7 Most Anticipated Books for Fall 2023
The new show on Netflix about the Sacklers and the opioid crisis is called Painkiller.
Our next episode we team up with House of Anansi Press to read a new poetry collection, The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird.
Books Mentioned
It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood
The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood
Surfside Girls by Kim Dwinell
The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera
The Cryptid Club by Sarah Andersen
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
The Book of Phobias and Manias by Kate Summerscale
Always Never by Jordi Lafebre
Ripple Effects by Jordan Hart and Matthew Noe
My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
The Beauty by Jason A. Hurley and Jeremy Haun
Welcome to Gotham Academy by Becky Cloonan (of The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys), Brendan Fletcher, and Karl Kerschel
Stillwater by Chip Zdarsky
Ghost Tree by Bobby Curnow
Life is Strange: Dust by Emma Vieceli
Tell Me Everything: A Memoir by Minka Kelly
House of Slaughter by James Tynion IV (Something is Killing the Children spin-off)
You're On An Airplane by Parker Posey
Mother, Nature by jedidiah Jenkins
The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
Junior High by Tegan and Sara Quin\
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
The Writing of Fiction by Edith Wharton
Steering the Craft by Ursula Le Guin
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Sordidez by E.G. Condé
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
Syllabus by Lynda Barry
Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes
Moonheart by Charles de Lint
Seven Tears into the Sea by Terri Farley
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
The Blue Salt Road by Joanne M. Harris
Sealskin by Su Bristow

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

In Episode 126, Gen and Jette team up with indie publisher Stelliform Press. They generously sent us a copy of their recent release Sordidez by E.G. Condé, which follows different members of communities trying to survive in a world ravaged by war and climate catastrophe.

Show Notes
We first heard about Stelliform Press at last year's Word on the Street festival. They publish stories that centre climate change and environmental justice.
The book about Guatemala that Gen couldn't remember the name of is Bitter Fruit by Stephen Schlesinger. It details the CIA's operation to overthrow the country's democratically elected government in 1954.
Find more of E.G. Condé's work at www.egconde.com or follow him on social media — @CloudAnthro on Twitter and @boricuascribe on Instagram.
Our next episode is going to be our summer hangout! Join us for some iced tea and reading/writing updates.

Other Books Mentioned
The Impossible Resurrection of Grief by Octavia Cade (also published by Stelliform)

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

It's time for another round of #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt! Actually, it was mostly BookTok this time. We're finally diving into one of Colleen Hoover's books. Verity has been all over Instagram and TikTok, and when friend of the pod Kattie read it, we knew it was time. We had a lot to say about this one. Let us know where you fall on the CoHo books – love or hate? We want to know.

Show Notes

Are we going to read another CoHo book for the pod? Maybe.

In our next episode we're teaming up with a new indie book publisher that we discovered at Word on the Street—Stelliform Press. They publish mostly speculative climate fiction and we'll be talking about their new release, Sordidez by E.G. Condé.

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

In Episode 124, Gen and Jette talk about The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder. This was Jette's pick for our book club and we loved the dystopian vibes and talking all about memories.

Show Notes
Yōko Ogawa has won every Japanese literary award, including the Akutagawa Prize and Yomiuri Prize.
Playing It Cool is a 2014 film starring Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, Michelle Monaghan, Anthony Mackie, Topher Grace, and Luke Wilson. With such a stacked cast, you'd think Gen would've heard of it.
Our next book club pick is Bear by Marian Engel

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

Gen and Jette up their CanCon for Pride this year with Junior High — a middle grade semi-autobiographical graphic novel from Canadian musical duo Tegan and Sara, with the illustrations of Tillie Walden.

Show Notes

Tegan and Sara's memoir High School was released in September 2019 and has since been turned into a TV series on Amazon Freevee. We've never heard of this show or Amazon Freevee, but we're definitely going to look it up.

There is going to be a sequel to Junior High! It's called Crush, but there's no word yet on a potential release date for it.

Tegan Sara's latest album is called Crybaby and came out in 2022.

If you've never listened to Tegan and Sara before, go do it now! Gen recommends starting with So Jealous.

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

In Episode 122, Gen and Jette keep up their CanCon with a discussion of Canadian authors.
Show Notes
If you're unfamiliar with CanCon, it's the stipulation that all Canadian media contain a certain percentage of content produced, written, etc. by Canadians.
It turns out we have a lot of episodes about books by Canadian authors (though not 35% as dictated by CanCon...we're working on it LOL). Find them all listed below.
Listen to the CBC Massey Lectures for free on the CBC Radio website
Alicia Elliot's new novel, And Then She Fell, is expected September 26.
Anne Michael's new novel, Held, is expected November 9.
Should we do an episode on Marian Engle's Bear?
We did our best to list everything we talked about below, but it's very likely that we left something out since we talked about a lot. (Buckle in, she's a long one)
Our next episode we'll be talking about Tegan and Sara's new graphic novel, Junior High (more CanCon!)
Books & Authors Mentioned
Robert Munsch
Fiona Staples (Saga)
Chip Zdarsky (Sex Criminals)
Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer)
Margaret Atwood
Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers)
Carol Shields (The Stone Diaries)
Margaret Laurence (The Stone Angel)
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)
Roberston Davies
Alice Munro
Mordecai Richler (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Barney's Version, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang)
Lawrence Hill (The Book of Negroes)
Yann Martel (Life of Pie)
Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient)
Miriam Toews (A Complicated Kindness, Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows)
Esi Edugyan (Hald-Blood Blues, Washington Black)
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, Sea of Tranqulity)
Courtney Summers (Sadie, The Project)
Silvia-Moreno Garcia (Mexican Gothic, Certain Dark Things, Velvet Was the Night, Silver Nitrate)
Madeleine Thein (Do Not Say We Have Nothing)
Anne Michaels (Fugitive Pieces)
Marian Engle (Bear)
Douglas Coupland (Generation X, Girlfriend in a Coma, Hey Nostradamus, All Families Are Psychotic, Terry, Microserfs)
Episodes with Canadian Authors & Books
10: Heartbreaker by Claudia Dey
20: House of Anansi Press 2019 Spring Books (Autopsy of a Boring Wife by Marie-Renée Lavoie & Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin)
25: Sadie by Courtney Summers
26: Paper Houses by Dominique Fortier
36: Disfigured by Amanda Leduc
39: House of Anansi New Releases (Coming Up for Air by Sarah Leipciger &
Pallbearing Stories by Michael Melgaard)
42: The Shale Project (Two Dark Moons by Avi Silver & The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming by Sienna Tristen)
43: You Are Not What We Expected by Sidura Ludwig
50: From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
51: Coach House Books 2021 Fall Releases (Imago Stage by Karoline Georges & Fauna by Christiane Vadnais)
59: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
62: Because the Sun by Sarah Burgoyne
70: A Boring Wife Settles the Score by Marie-Renée Lavoie
74: And Miles To Go Before I Sleep by Jocelyne Saucier
82: Pegamoose Press
88: Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
92: Interview with Stephanie Cooke

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

In episode 121 Gen & Jette sit down for Another Cup of Tea and a spring hangout. We're talking all about what we've been reading lately and what we have planned for the coming months.
Show Notes
If you're in Toronto on May 27 & 28, be sure to stop by the Word On the Street festival.
Find out more about Gen's upcoming summer retreats.
Our next episode (for real this time) is all about Canadian authors.
Read along with our current book club pick, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, which we'll be discussing first thing in July.
Books Mentioned
The Cannibals by Tingu
Vicious Creatures by Sarah Gordon
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
Sing Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
The Night Shift by Alex Finlay
The Nice House on the Lake by James Tynion IV
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Girl and the Glim by India Swift
Junkwraith by Ellinor Richey
Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
These Witches Don't Burn & This Coven Won't Break by Isabel Sterling
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman
Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Losers by Andy Diggle and Jock
Surfside Girls by Kim Dwinell
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno Garcia
Small Mercies by Denis Lehane
Tombs by Junji Ito
The Writing of Fiction by Edith Wharton
When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey
Moonheart by Charles de Lint
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Magicians by Lev Grossman

In Episode 120, Gen and Jette dive into the latest book club pick and talk all things writing with The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. This one has been on Gen's list for a while and the consensus it that it should be required reading for any writer or artist.

Show Notes

You can sign up for Gen's writing and yoga retreat here: Fort Erie July 17-20 & The June Motel in PEC September 8-10

Our next episode is all about Canadian authors because we gotta get that CanCon. But sincerely Canada has some really incredible writers and we can't wait to talk about them.

And the next book club selection is The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder. Read along with us this May & June so you know what's going on when we talk about it on July 5!

Other books and authors mentioned

How to Write and Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (listen to the episode)

Paper Houses by Dominique Fortier, translated by Rhonda Mullins (listen to the episode)

A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm (listen to the episode)

Henry David Thoreau

Jack London

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.