Bookends with Mattea Roach

• All I want for Christmas … is a fake boyfriend?

  Christmas is a time for togetherness, good food … and lying to your family about your love life. At least, that’s the case in Uzma Jalaluddin’s new holiday rom-com, Yours for the Season. The book stars Sameera and Tom, whose career ambitions lead them into a fake-dating situation. The holidays get even messier when Sameera and Tom’s families decide to spend Christmas together … and to top it all off, Sameera’s family has never celebrated Christmas before. It’s a holiday faux-mance that takes a deeper look into faith, family and culture, with a healthy helping of delicious food and Christmas hijinks. Uzma joins Mattea Roach to talk about the cultural nuances at the centre of the book, her own relationship with the holidays and why Die Hard is actually a rom-com. Liked this conversation? Keep listening:Nita Prose: The Maid series returns with a Christmas twist Fans asked for another happy ending — Carley Fortune delivered

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• Video games are radical. Not in the way you think

  Video games make you violent. Video games corrupt the youth. Video games rot your brain! You’ve probably heard that narrative before … but Kawika Guillermo offers a fresh take in their new essay collection, Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games. The book is part memoir, part cultural analysis about the roles that video games play in our lives. For Kawika, games aren’t just a mindless escape — they’re thoughtful works of art that help us understand our identities and the world we live in. Kawika joins Mattea to talk about gaming as a catalyst for social change, rethinking shooting games and how video games helped them grapple with grief. Liked this conversation? Keep listening:Why this Pulitzer Prize winner is done with writing booksWeightlifting made Casey Johnston stronger — in muscle and mind

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• Three writers on the monsters that made them

  What’s more horrifying than slashers, monsters … and Vancouver real estate? This week, Bookends brings you on-stage at the Vancouver Writers Fest. Back in October, Mattea Roach was joined by writers Mona Awad, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Jen Sookfong Lee for a special panel about how the horror genre reflects our lived experiences. All three authors have written horror stories that go deeper than jump scares or screams in the dark. Their novels tell us the truth about the world through metaphor, myth and monsters … and share why real life is sometimes scarier than fantasy. Liked this conversation? Keep listening:Why Mona Awad gave the Bunnies a say Erica McKeen: Using horror and surrealism to explore grief, care and love in new novel Cicada Summer

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• A priest and an artist walk into a bar

  … and they can’t keep their hands off each other. That’s the premise at the centre of Brandon Taylor’s latest novel, Minor Black Figures. It’s about a painter named Wyeth who’s struggling to find his voice in New York’s politically charged art scene. It only gets messier when Wyeth has the perfect meet-cute at a bar … and starts falling for someone who has already devoted himself to God. Brandon joins Mattea to talk about his Alabama roots, grappling with a crisis in faith and the impossible question of who we make art for.Liked this conversation? Keep listening:Zadie Smith never thought she’d tell this storyRumaan Alam: How would you spend a billion dollars?

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• Anarchists have bigger hearts than you think

  What’s more romantic than planning an assassination together? You’d have to ask the radical activist Emma Goldman, who did just that with her revolutionary partner and lover, Sasha Berkman. Emma was a real historical figure and one of the best known anarchists and orators of all time … and the Canadian author Robert Hough fictionalizes her life in his latest novel, Anarchists in Love. The book follows Emma’s early years in New York City, where she meets Sasha, becomes a famed activist … and helps plan the assassination of an industry giant. This week, Robert joins Mattea Roach to talk about Emma’s remarkable life, what we have wrong about anarchists and why 2025 is the new Gilded Age. Liked this conversation? Keep listening:Leslie Jamison: Capturing Peggy Guggenheim in fiction and honouring a friend's dream

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