 | Thursday, January 23, 2025 | |  | | | | Canada Reads is back! This year, the great Canadian book debate is looking for one book to change the narrative.
The books on this year's show all have the power to change how we see, share and experience the world around us. | | |  | | | | How would you spend an inconceivable amount of money? That's one of the questions Rumaan Alam explores in his latest novel, Entitlement. Entitlement tells the story of Brooke, a woman in her thirties who gets a new job helping an elderly billionaire who wants to give away large parts of his fortune before he dies.
Alam spoke on Bookends with Mattea Roach about the book. | | |  | | | | In her latest novel, The Paris Express, Emma Donoghue provides a vivid account of late 19th-century France, exploring the fears and desires of the time through a group of passengers — diverse in their social class, age and occupation, aboard the Granville-Paris express. The Paris Express will be published on March 18, 2025. Read an excerpt now! | | |  | | | | Bestselling YA author S.K. Ali will judge the 2025 First Page student writing challenge. The First Page student writing challenge asks students in Grades 7 to 12 from across Canada to write the first page of a speculative novel set 150 years in the future.
The challenge tasks young writers with imagining how current world issues and trends will evolve in the next century. The competition will be open from Feb. 1-28. | | |  | | | | It's a brand new year full of promise and good intentions! CBC Books senior producer Ryan B. Patrick sat down with The Next Chapter's Antonio Michael Downing dropped by to recommend three titles that at least point us towards hope. | | |  | | | | In her debut memoir Here After, Calgary writer Amy Lin tells her and her husband Kurtis' powerful love story — and shares how she copes with his sudden death. Lin joined Bookends with Mattea Roach to discuss the intensity of grief, the widowhood effect and the reality of life after death. | | |  | | | | Rebecca Yarros's Onyx Storm, the third book in a series that started with the wildly successful BookTok sensation Fourth Wing in 2023, officially hit the shelves in January. But hundreds of eager fans got their hands on copies at midnight at release events across the country, some shelling out up to $100 for the experience.
The author herself attended a sold-out midnight release held in New York City, just one of over 1,100 events planned across the U.S. and Canada. | | |  | | | | Former Vancouver's Roundhouse Radio host Minelle Mahtani spoke to writers every day about their deepest thoughts, while she was going through immense grief off-air. The Canadian writer and former radio host spoke with The Next Chapter’s Antonio Michael Downing about loss and what inspired her memoir, May It Have a Happy Ending. | | |  | | | | The CBC Nonfiction Prize is open now until March 1 at 4:59 p.m. ET. If you are ready to submit, head to CBC Books for more information.
The winner receives $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and their work will be published on CBC Books.
Four finalists each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and their work is also published on CBC Books. | | |  | | | | Bookends with Mattea Roach airs on CBC Radio One on Sundays at 1 p.m. (1:30 p.m. NT, 3 p.m. PT) starting Sept. 8. It will also be available on CBC Listen, wherever you get your podcasts and on the CBC Arts YouTube channel.
Bookends will take over the Writers & Company podcast feeds, so subscribe on Chartable or check out CBC Listen to never miss an episode. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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