 | Thursday, July 13, 2023 | |  | | | | From rom-coms to funny memoirs, satires and hilarious novels, these Canadian books will make you smile this summer. | | |  | | | | | Book lovers have created a vibrant community on TikTok. Now, the owner of the social media platform is getting into the publishing business. Author Jael Richardson stops by Commotion to talk about the tech giant's reported approach so far, and how #BookTok continues to upend the publishing industry. | | |  | | | | For romance author Carley Fortune, summer is a time to relax and rediscover ourselves. Her latest novel, Meet Me at the Lake, offers readers an escape into Ontario cottage country. Fortune spoke with Ryan B. Patrick about lakes and love on the summer edition of The Next Chapter. | | |  | | | | It turns out an old saying might be wrong — you can judge a book by its cover after all, say authors and book designers. The Sunday Magazine looks into the art of designing book covers. | | |  | | | | Danny Ramadan says the hardest year of his life was his first year as a refugee in Canada and adjusting to a new way of life. His second novel, The Foghorn Echoes, echoes that sense of dislocation through the interweaving stories of two young men in Syria and their forbidden love. He spoke with Shelagh Rogers about crafting the queer immigrant story at the heart of The Foghorn Echoes. | | |  | | | | This summer, as Writers & Company wraps up after a remarkable 33-year run, Eleanor Wachtel presents 10 of her favourite episodes chosen from the show's archive.
In a rare joint conversation, Margaret Drabble and Michael Holroyd spoke to Eleanor Wachtel onstage at the 2001 Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal. | | |  | | | | Milan Kundera, whose dissident writings in communist Czechoslovakia transformed him into an exiled satirist of totalitarianism, has died in Paris at the age of 94. Kundera's renowned novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, opens wrenchingly with Soviet tanks rolling through Prague. Weaving together themes of love and exile, politics and the deeply personal, Kundera's novel won critical acclaim and earned him a wide readership among Westerners. | | |  | | | | The annual award celebrates the best works of fiction that have been translated into English. Joining Wachtel on the jury are poet Natalie Diaz, novelist Romesh Gunesekera, visual artist William Kentridge and writer and translator Aaron Robertson. | | |  | | | | In the world of poetry and children's literature, author Kwame Alexander is royalty. Now, Alexander has released his first full-length book for adults. His memoir Why Fathers Cry At Night is a window into the life and mind of one of America's greatest children's authors. He joins Q's Tom Power to share some of the stories in his memoir. | | |  | | | | The image of Afghanistan that we tend to see in the news is one of constant conflict. But Toronto-based writer Jamaluddin Aram is out to show another side of life during wartime. His debut novel, Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on a Wednesday, showcases everyday life in an Afghan neighbourhood amid the country’s civil war in the 1990s. He joins David Common on The Sunday Magazine to discuss why he wanted to show how life in Afghanistan is as full as anywhere else in the world. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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