Mattea Roach, host of new literary radio show ‘Bookends,’ on their love of reading

TORONTO — Mattea Roach is starting a new professional chapter.

The Toronto-based “Jeopardy” super-champion turned podcaster will hit the airwaves Canada-wide this weekend as they take the helm of CBC’s new literary radio show, “Bookends.”

The new gig comes a year after Roach successfully defended cartoonist Kate Beaton’s graphic memoir “Ducks” on CBC’s “Canada Reads” as the one book Canadians should read to shift their perspective.

Roach plans to interview authors from Canada and abroad on “Bookends,” delving into their work and the context in which they create it.

The Canadian Press asked Roach about their reading habits in an email interview.

ROACH: According to my data on StoryGraph (similar service to Goodreads), I like to read books that are “reflective, emotional, and informative,” and I think that’s a pretty good summation of what ties together my taste in reading. I read pretty widely — the three most recent books I read outside of work were a cowboy fantasy graphic novel, a memoir about living as an artist in Big Sur, and a book that did an anthropological analysis of bureaucracy. What ties the three together for me is that I felt they all had something to teach me about how to live in the world.

CP: What’s your earliest memory of loving to read?

ROACH: I have three younger siblings who are 4.5, 4.5, and 6.5 years younger than me, respectively. By the time the twins were born, I already knew how to read. A lot of my early memories of reading are actually of reading aloud to them.

CP: What book have you re-read the most times, and what keeps bringing you back to it?

ROACH: “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel. Any description I give of it doesn’t do justice to what an incredible work it is, but it’s a graphic memoir that depicts Bechdel’s relationship with her father, who died when she was 19. “Fun Home” is also a queer coming-of-age story, as Bechdel dives into her childhood and young adulthood to examine the process of her coming to identify as a lesbian. I read “Fun Home” for the first time when I was 18 and coming out myself, and it totally shook my world. I go back to it often because I feel that as I grow older and continue to accumulate life experiences, I pick up on different things in the text than on my first go around.

CP: Is there a genre or type of book that you don’t naturally gravitate towards?

ROACH: I don’t generally enjoy romance novels — I have a hard time feeling like the happy endings are properly earned.

CP: How and when do you decide not to finish a book you’ve started?

ROACH: I try to be very discerning with what I read in the first place to avoid abandoning books midway. My most common reason for not finishing a book is that I need to return it to the library.

CP: Are there any books you haven’t read that you’re saving for a rainy day?

ROACH: I have some big tomes kicking around my house that I want to chip away at over time — “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshana Zuboff, “Capital in the 21st Century” by Thomas Piketty, and “Debt” by David Graeber. These aren’t the sort of books we’re going to be covering on “Bookends,” so I’ll save them for my leisure time (I have some funny ideas about what constitutes “leisure”).

CP: Ebook, paper book or audiobook?

ROACH: Paper book unless it’s absolutely impossible for some reason.

CP: Essay collection or narrative non-fiction?

ROACH: Love both, but I marginally prefer narrative non-fiction.

CP: Plot-driven or character-driven?

ROACH: Character-driven — I sometimes love reading a book where nothing happens.

“Bookends” premieres on CBC Radio and CBC Listen on Sunday, Sept. 8 at 1 p.m. ET.