Living Stories course reading list

This is an optional guide of inspirational books for our Living Stories course.

These tellers and their stories inspire me as I curate the course content. I wish to thank them and recommend them to you. You can read any of these before, during or after the course.

Or you can just show up without any preparation. None of them are required for participating as our focus is spontaneous sharing and improvisation. Sometimes, it's enough to know a book exists and has a pretty cover :-)

Book List

Texte Themen und Strukturen: Deutschbuch für die Oberstufe 

A German literature textbook we used in high school. It covers 1500 years of German(ic) language poetry, prose and literature and places it in historic and cultural context. Who knew it would come in handy again almost 20 years later...

Right Story, Wrong Story by Tyson Yunkaporta

Story at the heart of everything. How we convene and share matters! Summarising my relationship with this book is impossible. It builds on Yunkaporta's previous book Sand Talk and is followed by his newest publication Snake Talk.

Het Helende Verhaal by Joke Goudswaard & Wibe Veenbaas

The Healing Story. Core reading for the 3 year Professional Communication course at Phoenix Opleidingen. My favourite book on the syllabus. It is a guide to opening the metaphoric space when working with coaching, therapy and training clients. As far as I know, it is only available in Dutch.

Impro for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone

The second book I ever bought on improvisation. My first was Johnstone's previous and more famous book Impro. Both are essential reading for anyone practicing improvisation theatre or members of the Applied Improvisation Network. This volume is a vast collection of activities and instructions Johnstone used with his students.

Combining by Nora Bateson

A rich compilation of words, images, sounds, and insights. It accompanies practicing in the Warm Data Labs and People Need People spaces. As it is similar in structure to an anthology, you can dip in an out of this book in any order.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Die Unendliche Geschichte in German. Michael Ende could be described as the German Tolkien. The feature film from 1984 only depicts the first third of this book. The story goes far beyond the book and leaves many threads hanging as stories for another day...

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

This would be an incomplete list without it. Ironically, I forgot to include it here in my first draft. The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's extended universe are really a gift that keeps on giving. The more I engage with his works, the deeper my insights and broader my learning.

Earthsea and a bunch of other works by Ursula K. Le Guin

Beautiful words and worlds I wish I had been introduced to sooner. I'm still on the road of discovering them now. Studio Ghibli made a film titled Tales from Earthsea which is an amalgamation of stories from the Earthsea collection.

Strange but true Newfoundland Stories collected by Jack Fitzgerald

Some personal nostalgia for me and general delight for by the fireside. This is a glorious collection of funny, bizarre and indeed very strange stories that happened to people living on and visiting the island of Newfoundland.

Unpsychology Magazine curated and edited by Steve Thorp, Julia Macintosh, Lesley Maclean and Patrick Carpenter

A collective exploration of edges and a work of love which brought my family together in unexpected ways. This is a great example of multi perspective and multi media story sharing.

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There are many many many others and I will keep adding to this list.

Also in the forms of blogs, podcasts, plays, music, images, living beings, conversations, environments, food, games, films... 

This is a starting nudge

Stories for another day