Books & Ideas Audio

Aug 31 2024 51 ep. 68 mins
Books & Ideas Audio Podcast artwork

Exhilarating conversations and ideas from the world’s greatest storytellers and luminaries. From the esteemed vaults of the Vancouver Writers Fest, located in beautiful British Columbia.

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Ali Velshi and Ian Hanomansing in Conversation

Aug 31 2024 81 mins  
Ali Velshi—Chief Correspondent for MSNBC, a weekly economics contributor to NPR, and host of his own news show, “Velshi”—joins us to discuss his new book Small Acts of Courage, a captivating family history that illustrates how small actions can have an outsized political impact. He speaks with Ian Hanomansing, host of CBC’s The National from Vancouver on Fridays and Sunda

Andrey Kurkov: Diary of an Invasion

Aug 01 2024 60 mins  
The Vancouver Writers Fest and Upstart & Crow Literary Arts Studio welcomed Ukraine’s most celebrated writer, Andrey Kurkov, to discuss his work with international correspondent for The Globe and Mail, Nathan VanderKlippe. Kurkov will be back at the Vancouver Writers Fest with his International Booker Prize-longlisted novel, The Silver Bone. Diary of an Invasion is a searing

Wade Davis: Beneath the Surface of Things

Jul 01 2024 58 mins  
Travel into the heart of humanity with one of the foremost thinkers of our time. Wade Davis’s awe-inspiring career includes being the renowned author of 24 books, Professor of Anthropology, Member of the Order of Canada, and former Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. He joins the Vancouver Writers Fest with Beneath the Surface of Things, a new collection tha

Michelle Good: Truth Telling

May 31 2024 68 mins  
Michelle Good has moved and inspired millions of people with Five Little Indians, the Canada Reads-winning novel that tells the story of a group of residential school survivors coming to terms with their past and finding a way forward. She joined us at the Vancouver Writers Fest on October 21st, 2023, in partnership with Talking Stick Festival, HarperCollins Canada Ltd, and the Pet

Celeste Ng: Our Missing Hearts

Apr 30 2024 50 mins  
Where does one start when listing the accolades and praise for Celeste Ng’s deeply felt, intelligent body of work? Little Fires Everywhere sold millions of copies worldwide and was adapted to a highly acclaimed series on Hulu. Of her latest, Our Missing Hearts, Stephen King shared that “it’s impossible not to be moved,” while TIME, NPR, People, The Globe and Mail, and more,

The Poetry Bash

Mar 31 2024 84 mins  
Our annual Poetry Bash is a gateway to discovering exceptional poets from across the globe. In this release from our 2023 flagship Festival, hear readings from Victoria Adukwei Bulley (Quiet), Lorna Crozier (After That), Patrick Friesen (Reckoning), Susan Musgrave (Exculpatory Lilies) Michael V. Smith (Queers Like Me), and Matthew James Weigel (Whitemud Walking).

Sheila Heti: Alphabetical Diaries

Feb 29 2024 61 mins  
Acclaimed Canadian writer Sheila Heti speaks with Molly Cross-Blanchard in this conversation from our 2024 Incite series, presented in partnership with the Vancouver Public Library. Her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, collects lines from a decade's worth of her journals—rearranged in alphabetical order to create something entirely fresh and sublime. Heti is the author of

Zadie Smith in Conversation with Madeleine Thien

Jan 31 2024 48 mins  
Widely recognized as one of the finest and most influential authors writing in English today, Zadie Smith speaks about her acclaimed latest novel, The Fraud, with her internationally-renowned Canadian contemporary, Madeleine Thien. This event was presented in 2023 in partnership with UBC School of Creative Writing and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, and with the support o

Naomi Klein: Doppelganger

Dec 01 2023 73 mins  
Naomi Klein’s new book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, delves into what she calls the Mirror World—our destabilized present rife with doubles and confusion, where far-right movements playact solidarity with the working class, AI-generated content blurs the line between genuine and spurious, and so many of us project our own carefully curated digital doubles into th

Margaret Atwood in Conversation

Aug 31 2023 65 mins  
The legendary Margaret Atwood joined award-winning author Ian Williams to discuss Old Babes in the Wood, her extraordinary new collection of short fiction, as part of our May Bestsellers Series. A cornerstone of Canada’s literary canon, Atwood is the author of over fifty books. Presented in partnership with Scotia Wealth Management and with support from the Chan Endowment Fund a