The Bibliopod: Rushdie, Gillers, Purdy and TIFF

This week on the Maclean’s books podcast: An interview with Salman Rushdie, deconstructing the Giller Awards long list, and movie adaptations at TIFF, including a revealing new documentary about Al Purdy.

Salman Rushdie joins us in the Bibliopod studio to talk about his rollicking new novel, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, why his most cheerful books are written in dark times, and whether he was really writing about Trump and Obama and Christopher Hitchens.

Plus, it’s the start of awards season, and Anne Kingston and Brian Bethune drill into the Giller long list, announced this week: Who’s in, who’s out, and what  the nominees say about how Canadian book prizes and how we read now.

And as the Toronto International Film Festival gets under way, we look at books turned movies, and when they work (and don’t). Also, former Maclean’s film critic Brian D. Johnson joins us to talk about a different sort of book movie: his documentary, Al Purdy was Here,  about the remarkable appeal of Canada’s “voice of the land.”

You can listen to the podcast on Soundcloud below, or subscribe free on iTunes, Stitcher and Beyondpod! If you like this, check out our other audio offerings, from our columnists reading their work to two other weekly podcasts on politics and culture.