What is the outlook of a story?
Hello listener, welcome to my podcast series: The Story explorer. I am a reader who has the need to talk with others about what I’ve read. I have started and joined many book clubs. I now run one in a little café in Johannesburg. You are all welcome to join. But because time is sparse for many of us and Johannesburg is not within travelling distance for many readers I am taking up the challenge to talk about books in a podcast. I believe a story always is embedded in something else. This will be the starting point of this podcast journey. I want to look at what is around the story; what is the location? Who are the characters? What is it that happens in the story? What does it do within me, the reader? What do I think the author wants to say? What does this story make me think about? These are questions I want to explore with books that I think are important. Books I believe we all should read and talk about.
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What is the outlook of a story?
Hello listener, welcome to my podcast series: The Story explorer. I am a reader who has the need to talk with others about what I’ve read. I have started and joined many book clubs. I now run one in a little café in Johannesburg. You are all welcome to join. But because time is sparse for many of us and Johannesburg is not within travelling distance for many readers I am taking up the challenge to talk about books in a podcast. I believe a story always is embedded in something else. This will be the starting point of this podcast journey. I want to look at what is around the story; what is the location? Who are the characters? What is it that happens in the story? What does it do within me, the reader? What do I think the author wants to say? What does this story make me think about? These are questions I want to explore with books that I think are important. Books I believe we all should read and talk about.
What can go wrong, and how it might go right.
In this episode, I share how I prepare for the bookclub evening at Saint-Germain; a popular gathering spot in 44 Stanley, Johannesburg. The evening will centre around Heaven, a novel written in 2009 by Japanese author Mieko Kawakami.
Kawakami won the Murasaki Shikibu prize for this book in Japan, and the English translation by Sam Bet and David Boyd was shortlisted for the International Booker prize in 2022. A bookseller from Exclusive Books in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, had recommended this book to me. The book is about teenagers who are being bullied at school. Bullying is a subject that I believe needs our full attention. That's why I choose it for the book discussion.
I'll take you inside my thought process when preparing the questions that form the basis of our bookclub conversation. For example, my first question is inspired by an Instagram reel featuring influencer Mel Robbins and Dr. Gabor Maté. This prompted me to start the discussion with the question: "What is the real trauma here?"
I explain the construction process of the other 4 questions too. And I share what unfolded during the evening; how bookclub participants responded, where we found agreement, and where not... I end the episode with some afterthoughts.
If you have seen the Netflix series 'Adolescence' you'll probably recognise it leaves you with a horrifying, barbed wired knot, in your chest. I'll compare the two stories and explain why I think the ending of Heaven (which definitely leaves us with hope) makes these kind of stories crucial to be read in our world.
The Story Explorer
What is the outlook of a story?
Hello listener, welcome to my podcast series: The Story explorer. I am a reader who has the need to talk with others about what I’ve read. I have started and joined many book clubs. I now run one in a little café in Johannesburg. You are all welcome to join. But because time is sparse for many of us and Johannesburg is not within travelling distance for many readers I am taking up the challenge to talk about books in a podcast. I believe a story always is embedded in something else. This will be the starting point of this podcast journey. I want to look at what is around the story; what is the location? Who are the characters? What is it that happens in the story? What does it do within me, the reader? What do I think the author wants to say? What does this story make me think about? These are questions I want to explore with books that I think are important. Books I believe we all should read and talk about.
