Transcript / SSoP Podcast Season 8: So Many Exciting Destinations! Starts 28 August!

This is a transcription of ‘SSoP Podcast Season 8: So Many Exciting Destinations! Starts 28 August!’

[cheerful music]

David: Hello and welcome to a special edition of Strong Sense of Place. We are here today to share our plans for Season Eight, which kicks off Friday, August 28. If you’re listening the day this drops, that is two weeks!

Melissa: As always, we polled our patrons, thought about the places we want to travel in real life, looked at the world map hanging in our hallway, and put together an around-the-world itinerary loaded with good stories. And this season we’ve got eleven episodes for you, which… is a lot of books.

David: It is a lot of books. And a great mix of places we’ve been dreaming about and one or two we’ve been putting off for probably too long. Shall we tag team it?

Melissa: Let’s do it. First up, by request, on August 28 — Denmark.

David: Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world, and after reading about it for a month, I think I know why. There is a lot to love here: wild swimming, the invention of the Danish pastry, hygge, some very good crime fiction, and Lego! Denmark is the home of everybody’s favorite building blocks.

Melissa: And you’ve got a story about a Danish explorer that I am not going to spoil, but Dave has told it to me twice and it gets better every time.

David: It’s an amazing story. On September 11, we’re heading to Australia.

Melissa: Australia is one of those places where every single thing you learn about it is somehow both delightful and slightly alarming. Which is basically our whole podcast. That’s our favorite combo.

David: Expect emus, expect the Sydney Opera House, expect one of the oldest continuous storytelling traditions on Earth. And yes, we did read a Jane Harper.

Melissa: As one must. Then, on September 25, we’re doing a theme episode I’ve been really looking forward to: Boarding School.

David: This is one of those literary settings that just does a certain kind of work — the closed community, the hierarchy, the rules that only apply inside those walls. Boarding-school books tend to punch above their weight, and Mel and I both have very strong opinions about which ones do it best.

Melissa: We do. I’ll be recommending a Victorian classic that is surprisingly weird.

David: I loved both of my boarding school books, and I look forward to telling you about them.

Melissa: Then on October 9, we head to a place that is personal for one of us: Michigan.

David: Yeah! – I grew up in Michigan, and I’ve been looking forward to talking about it on the show for ages. This one is Great Lakes, lighthouses, Motown, the auto industry, cherry pie, and a state that has a much stranger and richer literary tradition than most people realize.

Melissa: After that, on October 23, we’re going to South Korea, which was a top pick from our patrons. Also, it’s a great excuse to talk about Han Kang, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2024.

David: Han is the biggest name, but South Korean literature is having a bit of a moment right now — the shelf of Korean books available in English is deep and exciting. We’ll talk about Han, but also a whole generation of writers who are in the spotlight.

Melissa: And then on November 6 — we break the show entirely.

David: Yeah. One of our patrons —

Melissa: Hi, Anna!

David: — suggested that we do an episode on shenanigans.

Melissa: She called it ‘shenaniganery.’

David: She did! And while ‘shenanigans’ is not a place, or a holiday, it sounded so fun, we decided to do it anyway.

Melissa: So standby for an episode with books about heists, capers, tricks, and delightful mischief.

David: These are always some of the most fun episodes we do. Also, and I want to note this — the following week, we’re going to be at Trevor Hall in Wales for our Readers’ Weekend.

Melissa: We are! Two weekends of it, actually. Twenty guests each weekend, joining us at a Georgian manor house in Llangollen for four days of books, food, walks, and one truly excellent old pub.

David: So we’re going to take a little December break to recover, do some holiday things, and come back to you in the New Year.

Melissa: And when we come back — on January 8 — we’re going to tell you all about the Trevor Hall weekend. What we read, what we ate, who we met, what we learned. We are already excited about it, and it hasn’t even happened yet.

David: After that, on January 22, we’re going to the Caribbean — take two.

Melissa: We covered Cuba and Jamaica back in Season Six, and this time we’re heading to a different set of islands. Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, maybe Trinidad and Tobago.

David: Then on February 5, we’re going to San Francisco, a place very close to our hearts. Mel and I met in San Francisco.

Mel: We did!

David: It’s fog, and steep hills, and dim sum, and dive bars, and City Lights Bookstore, and neighborhoods where every block has its own personality. If you’ve been, you know. If you haven’t, well - we hope this episode fixes that.

Melissa: We lived there on a houseboat with a very naughty siamese cat named Sesame and the cutest, dumbest gray cat named Street. We would probably still be there if the landlords hadn’t sold it out from under us.

David: Aw, the houseboat. … Moving on! – Then on February 19 — Edinburgh.

Melissa: I love Edinburgh. I’ve been to Edinburgh. I want everyone to go to Edinburgh.

David: This is the city that gave us Ian Rankin, Muriel Spark, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kate Atkinson, and Alexander McCall Smith. It’s a UNESCO City of Literature. And, as it happens, we are planning a real-life visit ourselves, which we’ll tell you more about closer to the time.

Melissa: And then we close out the season on March 5 with another themed episode I have been desperate to do: the Dinner Party.

David: Books built around a shared table. Comedy of manners, dinner-party mysteries, memoirs about food, novels where the entire plot happens between courses. Mel has been building this list for at least two years.

Melissa: I really have. This one might be my favorite of the season.

David: And that is Season Eight. Denmark on August 28 kicks us off.

Melissa: You can see the full schedule and gorgeous destination photos at strongsenseofplace.com/podcasts. Go take a peek — it will make you want to pack a bag.

David: If you have book recommendations for any of these destinations, or you just want to say hi, you can email us at mel at strongsenseofplace dot com and dave at strongsenseofplace dot com.

Melissa: If you’d like to be reminded when we drop a new episode, join our free Substack. The easiest way to find it is to visit strongsenseofplace.com slash signup. That gets you podcast announcements, my weekly links roundup on Fridays, and Tuesday Tea, our fun weekly community discussion about books, travel, art, food, and other good stuff. It’s fun, it’s free. What are you waiting for?

David: Season Eight kicks off Friday, August 28. We are very excited about it. We hope you are too. Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you soon.

[cheerful music]

Top image courtesy of Ryan Loughlin/Unsplash.