We talk with three writers involved in the campaign to pressure the Giller Prize to drop its primary sponsor.

We are joined by Shawn Mooney, the host of the fantastic BookTube channel, Shawn Breathes Books to talk about Queer Literature, why it's having its moment and why it's important for us to be reading it!

For some, reading is an escape from the world, but some of the most powerful and compelling works of fiction delve deep into political subjects. We are joined by Toronto short story writer, Humberto Da Silva, to discuss why political literature is worth embracing, what makes good political fiction and have a mini book club on last year's Booker Prize winning novel, Prophet Song.

On the first episode of the season, we are joined by Janet Hoy, co-owner of The City and the City Bookstore in Hamilton. We talk about speculative fiction, our favourite titles, and what makes it a fascinating genre. We also do a mini book club, talking about Giller Prize longlisted novel Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis.

Summer is coming to an end so we have to get in as much beach reading time in as possible. Our guest for this episode all about Beach Reads is Bookstagrammer Victoria Kinzel. We chat about what makes a good beach read, give several recommendations and finish off discussing Emily Henry's new book Happy Place.

We are joined today by Jaime Krakowski, independent bookseller and owner of Epic Books in Hamilton. We discuss adaptations of our favourite novels, what we are looking for, what has worked and what hasn't. The second half is a mini book/movie club featuring the novel and film Scarborough. 

This episode’s guest is Lisa Richter, a Toronto poet, and author of the award  winning collection Nautilus and Bone. We talked about what drew her to poetry, how we should read poetry, and how we should teach poetry. We dig into her collection and do a minibook club of Gillian Sze’s Quiet Night Think.

Many readers get caught up with book prizes so we wanted to explore why they are so entrancing, what we love and hate about them, and which winners we loved and hated.

Featured guest is Jill from the Book Bully BookTube Channel.

In this episode, Editorial Board member James Cairns joins us to discuss memoirs and essays, why the form resonates and which are our favourites. We also spend the second half digging deep into Sarah Polley's new memoirish essay collection, Run Towards The Danger.

This episode of the podcast is about literature in translation, and we are lucky to have Barbara Halla as our guest Barbara Halla. Barbara is the Criticism Editor for Asymptote Journal and a contributing editor for Reading in Translation, two online magazines publishing and reviewing literature in English translation. She works also as a researcher, focusing on the writings of contemporary and classic Albanian women authors.

This episode features an interview with Hamilton graphic novelist, Joe Ollman, who, besides being a great bookstore worker at Epic Books, is an award-winning graphic novelist whose latest work, Fictional Father, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s award for fiction. We talk comics, movies, how brilliant the Booker-longlisted Sabrina was and finish off with a discussion of Philippe Gerard’s graphic novel Leonard Cohen: On A Wire.

This episode features Ja'miil Millar, our guest editor for the Review's Youth Issue. We talk about her reading life, seeing ourselves (or not) in the literature we read, and have a discussion about The Most Precious Substance on Earth by Shashi Bhat.

For our first full episode, our guest is the Editor-in-Chief of the Hamilton Review of Books, Dana Hansen. We talk about the Review, Dana's reading life, and then have a great discussion about Miriam Toews new book Fight Night. Listen, subscribe and please review the podcast on the platform you use.

Meet your host Alex Kerner and find out what this new podcast is all about.