The Sunday Editionwith Michael Enright

Set in a post-war America and Dublin in the 1970s, Anne Enright's novel is the story of Irish theatre legend, Katherine O'Dell, as written by her daughter Norah.

One of the biggest dilemmas we face in the post-pandemic world is the state of the economy: What will it mean to return to work? Who will still have a job and who won't? Are there sectors of the economy that will never recover from COVID-19? And will we be living with government deficits for decades to come? Jim Stanford, one of Canada's most progressive economists, sheds light on these questions and more.

Author and documentary filmmaker Tom Shachtman talks about the influence of the late Eric Hoffer and his book The True Believer, which has become a classic. It is almost seven decades old, but it describes the brand of political extremism we see in politics today.

Emily Dickinson’s path from unknown hermit to full-blown icon is unique in American poetry. The first word of the first poem that she ever wrote was "awake." Almost two centuries later, Emily Dickinson is still jolting us into consciousness. We reprise our one-hour special, which was produced by Karen Levine.

Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.

Charles Taylor speaks with Michael Enright about some of the big questions the pandemic has raised about the future and the way we live now — and how he finds reasons for hope in the social solidarity Canadians have shown, and the potential for shaking off our old dogmas and routines.

In mid-March, there was a big Orthodox Jewish wedding in a Montreal hotel. Within days it had led to an outbreak of COVID-19, and the community had become a coronavirus hotspot. This had the potential to further divide them from their neighbours. But then the traditionally insular Hasids began reaching out and some of their neighbours — including singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright — began reaching back. David Gutnick’s documentary is called At The Root of Everyone.

A lot of things are hard to take for granted after two months of pandemic — and one of them is food: what we eat, where it comes from, and how we get it. It's also laid bare how intricate, interwoven and vulnerable to disruption and sudden change our food systems are. Gisèle Yasmeen, Executive Director of Food Secure Canada — a national alliance of organizations and individuals working to improve food security — discusses how the pandemic has revealed the weaknesses of our food systems, on both global and national levels.

A Winnipeg mom on life without the joys of baseball: Tracy Turner has always been passionate about softball. She played the game right through to her early 30s and now coaches her teenage daughter’s team, while her teenage son is an ump for younger children. With physical distancing, baseball rules are likely to change she says, but she thinks softball players will be out on dusty ball diamonds once again this year.

What do Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, the Indigo Girls and Sir John Gielgud have in common? They are all cruciverbalists, people who love wordplay and crossword puzzles. Adrienne Raphel is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them. It's a passion The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright shares.

Little Richard, who died on May 9, 2020 at 87, was a chameleon and musical shapeshifter in his long, colourful life. When rock and roll was in its infancy, though, Little Richard was a supernova — magnetic, subversive and explosive. York University musicologist and Grammy Award-winning music writer Rob Bowman talks about the man, his music and the enormous impact he had on popular culture.

Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.

The search for a vaccine to end the COVID-19 pandemic has started a global race never before seen in the history of medical research. Matthew Herder, the director of the Public Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University, raises questions about the funding model currently in place for vaccine research and development, and about how to ensure equitable access to the vaccine once it’s ready — both within nations and among them. 

Many mothers might feel a bit of an ache today — receiving hugs only from a distance, bouquets of flowers of the virtual kind. For Francesca LoDico and her mamma in Montreal, there's an added sting because, for over half a century, the family flower store has been the centre of their lives. But for the last seven weeks, Francesca's mother has been alone in her house. This is their story, But For Now We Stay Home.

People in their twenties often are on the cusp of things — making plans, leaving one nest and starting to build another. For those about to graduate from university and college, leaving the ivory tower and getting ready for the so-called real world has taken on a whole new meaning this year — virtual convocations and a virtually unreadable future. Alisa Siegel and David Gutnick collaborated on this week’s documentary, "The Class of 2020."

James Morland, a postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary’s University in London, explores how people thought about solitude in the 18th century, through the lens of three figures: the poet, the physician and the mourner.

As the lockdown stretches into weeks and months, one indicator of people's housebound state is their hair.