Special Podcast Series Experiment

Hello fellow bookworms,

I hope you’re all well and still fighting the good fight in our epic battle to keep reading and books at the center of our culture. I know I’ve not posted much recently, but it’s not because I’ve been away reinventing myself as a TikTok influencer, or whatever the correct term is. I mentioned in my last update that I was spending more time on the audio side of Bookish Asia. I’ve been helping Amy Chavez at the Books on Asia podcast, continuing with other podcasting and publishing work, and, oh yes, there’s the teaching day job.

I’m writing this post to tell you about something new I’m trying: a ten-part read-along of Dr. Chen Yao-chang’s historical novel A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa, which is set in the mid-1600s.

A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa (E-Book)

The series is an experiment. Instead of talking about a book for thirty minutes and then moving on, Scott Crawford, a historian and writer, and I are working our way through the entire novel. The idea is to give ourselves enough time to follow the characters and plot properly, while also weaving in the real history behind the story. We’re already seven episodes in (eight if you include our “halfway chat”).

The Three Tribes novel is particularly well suited to this approach. Its three central strands follow Maria Hambroeck, a young Dutch woman; Uma, a Siraya woman from southwestern Taiwan; and Chen Ze, a Chinese sailor and soldier. Their lives gradually intersect as Dutch rule in Taiwan moves toward its violent end.

Scott and I are treating the series as both a read-along and a historical companion. We discuss what happens in each section, use passages and dialogue from the novel, explain unfamiliar names and places, and sometimes pause to separate the documented history from the author’s imaginative reconstruction.

We hope this will be the first of many long-form Bookish Asia projects. There are some books that deserve more than a single podcast episode, and the format should work just as well for non-fiction as for novels. But whether we do more will depend partly on what listeners think.

Is a ten-part read-along useful and enjoyable? And, if the answer is yes – or somewhere in close proximity to yes – what titles do you think would work well? Books with a built-in fan base might be a good place to start. Off the top of my head, I’d like to do Seven Years in Tibet, Kim, and News from Tartary. What other books about East Asia would you like us to tackle this way?