The podcast, she says, was really couched in her early explorations of local culture. Married to a Hong Konger, she says that it’s a trope that there’s not much happening with books and reading in the city, March’s Hong Kong International Literary Festival aside. Yet, she feels this is a cultural disconnect. The local literary scene, is “buzzing, with something always going on,” even if the actual hardcopy book is much less ubiquitous than in many other cities around the world.

In her podcast, Besnard maps the world through books, flicking pages to better understand places, people and concepts. She holds dear authors and their creations as a portal through which we can better understand the shared experiences of people living in Hong Kong, through the themes of food, identity, language, family and culture. 

Besnard’s podcast is painstakingly crafted with each episode coming in at just under an hour. “It takes me ages, because I try to source sounds, to enliven the recordings,” she says, laughing at herself for even trying to source the sound of a glass of water scraping across a table recently. She’s made 11 episodes so far, which can be accessed via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other major podcast apps, but says she has plenty of episodes on the back burner, ready to undergo her magic (our words). 

Some of Besnard’s past guests include Maureen Tai, Wong Yi, Antony Huen, Ritu Hemnani and Siobhan McDermott.