Love It - Hate It @canadareadsinspired

Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

Rebecca and Tara ask the question: Why are we able to talk about a book for 30 minutes that we didn't like and yet struggle to articulate clearly what we loved about a five-star read?

Books discussed:

The Meaning of Leaving by Kate Rogers
Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
The Double Life of Benson Yu by Kevin Chong
Road Ends by Mary Lawson
Greenwood by Michael Christie

Interview - Caitlin Galway and A Song for Wildcats

$Interview - Leslie Shimotakahara and The Breakwater Rebecca is excited to chat with Canadian author Leslie Shimotakahara about her latest novel, The Breakwater, which will be published by Cormorant Books in April 2026. https://www.cormorantbooks.com/Books/T/The-Breakwater One morning in Toronto, Cathy Matsumoto’s father, Yasuo, calls to announce he intends to visit a dying cousin in British Columbia. Cathy’s never heard of this mysterious relative before, but she begrudgingly agrees to plan a family trip with her father and daughter, Tessa, to Victoria, the hometown Yas was forcibly evicted from when Japanese Canadians were interned during World War Two. Its only in BC that Cathy learns this “cousin” is actually Yas’s younger brother, Stum, who’s been languishing in psychiatric care, abandoned, ever since Yas committed him to Essondale Asylum before the war. Yas tries to fend off probing questions from his daughter and granddaughter, but revisiting old haunts brings back memories of the brothers’ boyhood rivalry and coming-of-age near Victoria’s Chinatown, when Yas’s resolve to hold their fractured family together clashed against Stum’s troublesome turn toward a life of gambling, crime, and consorting with prostitutes. In this heartbreaking family story, two brothers, both old men not far from death, must at last confront long-buried family secrets — and their lingering effects on subsequent generations. Recommended Books: Flashlight by Susan Choi Worldly Girls: A Memoir by Tamara Jong It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body by Kate Gies https://leslieshimotakahara.com/ https://www.instagram.com/leslieshimotakahara$

Interview - Jinwoo Park and Oxford Soju Club

Interview - Jerrod Edson and The Boulevard

Interview - Erin Steele and Sunrise over Half-Built Houses: Love, Longing and Addiction in Suburbia