The Book Corner with Mich Atagana

For the Season 4 finale, we close with a book that asks the sharpest question of all: once the world is listening, who owns the story.

In this final episode, I’m joined by Kevin Maina (@mainamind) to talk about Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. We follow Zelu, a Nigerian American writer whose sudden success turns her into a public argument, even as she tries to stay a person. The novel folds in excerpts from Zelu’s breakout sci-fi epic, creating a layered meditation on fame, disability, family pressure, and the violence of being misunderstood at scale.

In this episode:

• The difference between writing a book and surviving its reception

• The story-within-a-story, and why it hits harder than it sounds

• Success as a machine, and agency as a decision

• Our Season 4 takeaways: desire, power, and the cost of being seen

I’m @globemich. Kevin is @mainamind. Thanks for listening this season.

This week it’s just me, and we’re pairing two very different books that are secretly in conversation about the same thing: desire, and who gets to shape it.

First, Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia, a sharp, funny, romance-saturated novel about a devoted romantasy fan and fanfiction writer, Joonie Saboonchi, who starts measuring real life against fictional longing, then goes looking for the “real man” behind her favourite merman love interest. It’s satire, it’s sincerity, and it’s an unexpectedly tender look at what we think love should feel like.

Then, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, where a village girl, Agnieszka, is taken to a wizard’s tower, discovers a wild kind of magic that does not obey neat rules, and learns that the real enemy is the corrupted forest known as the Wood. It’s folklore, ferocity, and a heroine who becomes powerful without becoming polished.

In this episode:

• Fantasy boyfriends versus real-world intimacy

• What “female fantasy” reveals about hunger, control, and choice

• Two heroines who refuse to be edited down

• A quick listener practice: name one desire you’ve been taught to downplay

Follow the show, rate and review if it stayed with you. I’m @globemich.

This episode was meant to be about robots.
It starts there, briefly. Tin hearts, code, sentience, the usual.

Then Kevin Maina (@mainamind) takes the wheel and somehow we end up in poetry, longing, and the lost art of the love letter. No one is more surprised than me.

What follows is a very real conversation about why people still write to be remembered, why tenderness is a form of courage, and why a good line can outlive a perfect argument.

In this episode:

• The robot book we were supposed to discuss, in spirit

• Kevin’s case for poetry as emotional technology

• Love letters as archive, evidence, and risk

• The difference between saying “I miss you” and writing it so it stays

If you have ever drafted a message ten times and still sent just “hey”, this one is for you.
I’m @globemich. Kevin is @mainamind.

A city that turns survival into spectacle. A body-leaping power that makes desire dangerous. In this episode of The Book Corner with Mich Atagana, I’m joined by Kevin Maina (@mainamind) to dive into Chloe Gong’s San-Er duet: Immortal Longing and The Vilest Things.

We talk televised death games, politics with teeth, and a romance sharp enough to cut through a palace full of knives. Expect balcony bargains, impossible choices, and the question that never lets go: what will you trade for a future.

In this episode:

• Why San-Er feels like a character, not a backdrop

• Body-leaping as both plot engine and moral test

• Calla and Anton on the heat-to-heartbreak scale

• A quick listener practice: write one rule you won’t break, even when watched

Follow the show, rate and review if it moved you. I’m @globemich and Kevin is @mainamind.

A hospital game room, a chance reunion at a Boston station, and a lifetime of making things together. In this episode of The Book Corner with Mich Atagana, I’m joined by Kevin Maina (@mainamind) to talk about Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — a novel about friendship as a co-op campaign, art as labour, and the ways success tests who we are.

In this episode:

• Sam, Sadie, and Marx — why this trio works

• Collaboration when love is not the fix

• Games as art that can carry what speech cannot

• A quick listener practice: name one rule for your next creative partnership

Follow the show, rate and review if it moved you. I’m @globemich and Kevin is @mainamind.

Conquered kingdom. Outlawed magic. An heir who refuses the script. In this episode of The Book Corner with Mich Atagana, I am joined by Kevin Maina (@mainamind) to dive into Sara Hashem’s duology: The Jasad Heir and The Jasad Crown.

We talk survival that becomes leadership, romance that respects politics, and why magic feels like memory more than fireworks. Expect deadly trials, sharp negotiations, and a heroine who chooses precision over prophecy.

In this episode:

• Sylvia and Arin as a study in power and consent

• How the Alcalah trials reveal character under pressure

• Empire myths, resistance costs, and the lie at the centre of history

• A quick listener practice: write one boundary your future self will keep

Follow the show, rate and review if it moved you. I am @globemich and Kevin is @mainamind.

Kevin Maina and I step into Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, a dark-academia descent story set in 1980s Cambridge, where ambition feels like a religion and brilliance comes with a price tag.

Two rival PhD candidates make an impossible choice and head somewhere they were never meant to survive, all for the kind of academic validation that can decide a life. What follows is part underworld journey, part satire of institutional power, and part psychological reckoning. We talk about what the book suggests about mentorship, ego, co-dependence, and the quiet violence of systems that reward devotion while pretending it is merit.

If you have ever wanted something so badly it started to rearrange your morals, this one will hit.

In this episode:

• What “katabasis” means, and why descent stories endure

• Dark academia as a machine that feeds on ambition

• Rivalry, intimacy, and the thin line between collaboration and cannibalism

• Power, mentorship, and who gets to be called “brilliant”

• What you bring back from the underworld, even when you “win”

New season, new voice at the table. I’m joined by Kevin Maina (@mainamind) as we dive into a gothic, time-spanning feast about appetite, autonomy, and women who refuse to be consumed. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil moves from a 16th-century colony to Victorian England to modern Boston, braiding three lives into one reckoning.

In this episode:

• Why the three timelines sing together

• The most haunting images and why they linger

• How the book turns “monster” into a choice rather than a curse

• A simple listener practice: write three lines that begin with “I will not starve”

Follow the show, rate and review if it moved you. I’m @globemich and Kevin is @mainamind.

A carriage humming towards midnight. A bar stool shared by chance. In this episode of The Book Corner with Mich Atagana, we spend New Year’s Eve with two Tokyo favourites about small choices and soft courage:

• Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa

• Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

We talk about city intimacy, micro-gestures that change a day, and why some romances sound like quiet laughter under a shared umbrella. Expect bento boxes, mushroom talk, and the moment a stranger’s kindness resets your year.

In this episode:

• How routine becomes a refuge

• The ethics of attention on public transport

• A simple New Year’s practice: three sentences for the stranger across from you

Follow the show, leave a review if it soothed you. I am @globemich everywhere.

Fairy lights in the window, a kettle on the boil, and a counter stacked with wrapped surprises. In this festive episode of The Book Corner with Mich Atagana, we return to Rebecca Thorne’s cosy bookshop, where love reads like good stock-taking and community is built one recommendation at a time.

We talk about how the series turns ordinary work into romance, why December rituals matter, and the side characters who make a shop feel like home. Expect wreaths, late-night restocks, and a storm that becomes a tea party.

In this episode:

• What “cosy” really means when the stakes are human and kind

• Love as labour, and why tidy lists can be a love language

• A simple practice: brew something warm, choose one person, hand-sell them a book

Follow the show, leave a review if it warmed you, and I am @globemich everywhere.