ABSTRACT
Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, Oprah, the TV Book Club hosts and book club members who discuss the books in online forums or in the studio perform a storytelling role, and the texts discussed represent the stories that they tell. Positioning Richard and Judy and their readers as storytellers permits an examination of the way that commentators respond to the storyteller's authority and voice. The traditional storyteller draws and holds an audience within a community setting by constructing a story told through cycles, repetitions and delays. These practical storytelling techniques remain in the tales performed in contemporary storytelling cafes, although the sense of community connection is somewhat lost: in storytelling cafes in the UK today, storytellers are international, travelling figures who tour with their stories. The book club and other public manifestations of literature can even if unintentionally challenge authorial status by retelling the stories in the manner of the storyteller in oral narrative.
