Anne Murray meets Shelagh to reflect on the singer's life and career. Ms. Murray's memoir is called All of Me. Also on the show, gossip columnist Shinan Govani reveals the secrets behind is new novel, Boldface Names, a book that is only partly fictional and contains thinly disguised references to celebrities. Mark Leiren-Young drops by to tell an anecdote from his Leacock Award-winning humorous book, Never Shoot a Stampede Queen. And regular columnist Tom Howell launches Word Report, keeping Canadians up-to-date with poetry and today's literary avant-garde. The first victims, er, featured authors, are Martha Baillie, author of The Incident Report, and Amatoritsero Ede, author of Globetrotters & Hitler's Children.

Posted by Tom Howell at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Douglas Coupland's new novel is called Generation A. The two poets in the second half of the show are Rosanna Deerchild, author of this is a small northern town; and Pierre Nepveu, author of Mirabel.

Posted by Tom Howell at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jessica Grant's book Come, Thou Tortoise is a debut novel, featuring a 300-year-old tortoise named Winnifred. The main character is Audrey, and her point of view is only slightly less strange than the tortoise's. Grant talks with Shelagh about why she likes inhabiting the point of view of odd characters.

Also on the show, Norman Doidge talks about life since his mega-selling book The Brain That Changes Itself hit the shelves and changed how people talk about the brain.

Posted by Tom Howell at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

George Elliott Clarke channels his teenage years of boogie nights in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the 1970s. George's new book of poetry is called I & I, and it's written by his adult self and his teenage self — he's reworked and developed material that he originally concocted as a lusty teenager. "Gothic in romance, grotesque in its depictions, and gaudy in plot," so says the man himself.

Jennifer McLagan sings the praises of fat (as an ingredient, that is). She says it's a deeply misunderstood part of our diet. Her book is called Fat.

Shelagh recalls a conversation she had with Julia Child. Hannah Sung drops by to talk about the food-themed month over at the CBC Bookclub. And Andy Jones (of CodCo fame) teams up with illustrator Darka Erdelji to make a book based on the common folk-tale hero "Jack". It's called The Queen of Paradise's Garden.

Posted by Tom Howell at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lori Lansens wrote her first novel about conjoined twins. Now, in The Wife's Tale, she takes on the point of view of an obese woman whose life reshapes itself when her husband doesn't come home. The author speaks with Shelagh Rogers about fatness, thin-ness, loneliness and joy.

Also, singer Treasa Levasseur talks about her reading habits while on tour. The song played here is "Help Me Over" from Treasa's album, Low Fidelity. Dave Bidini and Ray Fennelly lament the loss of Pages Books & Magazines in Toronto and Granny Bates Children's Books in St. John's. Aritha Van Herk looks for happy marriages in Canadian writing, and comes across the books The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan and C.S. Richardson's The End of the Alphabet.

Posted by Tom Howell at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)