We visited the only book club in Banja Luka – “Yoko”, where several people from different professions meet once a month and give their opinion and interpretation of the book selected for that month. The club turned four years old this year.
About a dozen members of the club meet every month, except for August, in the Banja Luka cafe “Yoko” where they present their impressions of the book and discuss what they have read.
The members of the Yoko book club are from various professions – from journalists, economists, professors of Serbian or Italian to pharmacists. This reflects the beauty of their discussion, they tell us.
Some of the permanent members of the club are: Milena Aćimovac, Dijana Gajić, Dragan Grbić, Ognjen Radović, Sanja Kobilj Ćujić, Gordana Katana, Vesna Zarić and Dragana Dardić.
“Everyone experiences a book in a different way, but also notices details that others have missed. As a result, the book stays in the memory longer when it is discussed than when you read it yourself and put it away”admits Radović, one of the permanent members.
Our team visited the club and listened to the debate about the book “Hungarian sentence” by Andreja Nikolaidis.
Opinions were divided between those who absolutely loved the book and those who didn’t. The discussion was lively, but the tone remained at a normal level. Two hours passed quickly, and passionate fans of the written word dynamically presented individual parts of the book and striking quotes.
To our question about which book “spears broke” the most, we received many answers, such as “Crossroads” by Jonathan Frenzen or “Hurricane Season” by Fernanda Melchor.
The whole idea of founding the club started with the promotion of Lana Bastašić’s book “Catch the Rabbit” in this cafe a few years ago, when the group met and continued to meet and discuss new authors. Since then, about 50 books have already been discussed in the cafe environment, and some of the gatherings were attended by the authors themselves, such as Stevo Grabovac (“Mulatto albino mosquito”) and Tanja Stupar Trifunović.
The book club did not shut down even during the corona, when the operation of catering facilities was prohibited, but they held their regular meetings via Zoom.
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“Yoko” book club in Banja Luka: To remember books longer… (PHOTO/VIDEO)
The members of this small but active book club invited everyone who likes to read to join them at one of the next gatherings.
“A lot of people in the city read and in conversation I hear that they know about us, but it seems that most of them have some kind of blockage and are afraid of ‘breaking in’.” They are nervous to come to our gatherings, but here there is a relaxed atmosphere and we all get along well, but also learn something new.”said Gajić.
(WORLD)