Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop

by Hwang Bo-Reum

She would ask herself these questions: does this place make me feel positive? Can I be truly whole and uncompromisingly myself? Do I love and treasure myself here?

She only had to open the book to dive right into the adventures again.

The books welcomed her back with open arms without judging the person she’d become, and accepted her for who she was.

Immersing herself into the feelings of the characters provided a reprieve from her own. She grieved, suffered, and emerged stronger with them. As if sharing their experiences and emotions would, at the end of the book, allow her to understand anyone in the world.

She drowned the biting criticism – I don’t understand you! Why do you only think of yourself? – with their voices. They gave her strength, and finally, she mustered the courage to tell herself, ‘That was my only option back then.’

Small talk could be a considerate gesture, but most of the time, at your own expense. With nothing to say, squeezing the words dry leaves only an empty heart and a desire to escape.

But if I fail, does it mean that my life has no meaning?’

To read is to see things from someone else’s perspective, and that naturally leads you to stop and look out for other people, rather than chase after success in the rat race. If more people read, I think the world would become a better place.

Books are not meant to remain in your mind, but in your heart. Maybe they exist in your mind too, but as something more than memories. At a crossroads in life, a forgotten sentence or a story from years ago can come back to offer an invisible hand and guide you to a decision. Personally, I feel like the books I’ve read led me to make the choices I’ve made in life. While I may not remember all the details, the stories continue to exert a quiet influence on me.

It was part of the balance of life – a person’s dream coming true could mean the collapse of someone else’s life.

what’s so amazing about work that we obsess over having a job?

I’ve been thinking that what the government should do is not create more jobs, but to find a way for the citizens to make a living.’

That obsession to endure everything followed us into working life. You go to work even when you’re sick, and on days when you simply can’t get out of bed, the dread of skipping a day’s work eats at you more than the illness. Honestly, it’s common logic that you should rest when you’re not well. So why are we like this?

‘It felt like growing up because I was doing things I had consciously chosen to do for the first time.’

‘It’s like taking a walk down the streets when you’re overseas. You look curiously left and right, peeking around the corner of a turn. The excitement of the unknown, of the unfamiliar. It’s what makes travel so alluring.

We’re living in a world where everyone reveals too much of themselves.’

Whenever a thought flashed across her mind, it was usually accompanied by a related book. When she spoke, she naturally referenced a quote, an author’s name, or a particular theory, which sometimes bored the other party.

‘I don’t think much of dreams that are stripped bare of pleasure. Dreams, or pleasure?

A life without dreams is as dry as a life without tears. There’s a line in Hermann Hesse’s Demian that goes: “But no dream lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any particular dream.”’

That day, would you rather his face turn pale because of you, or that he acts as if it was none of his business? When you feel like crying, do you want him to be sad with you, or be nonchalant? If something good happens to you, would you want him to cheer you on, or not?

But sometimes logic doesn’t make great people, because you’ll always place logic above your heart.

She picked out a handful of books, thinking that she could continue doing book reviews during the month-long trip. They were essay collections, or novels set against the backdrop of the cities she planned to visit. It was one of the most effective reading methods: to visit the places in the book and read it there. To spend hours reading about New York, Prague and Berlin in the cities themselves. Was there a more romantic way of reading than this?

Right now, imagine that you and I are walking along the streets of Berlin. We’re moving from bookshop to bookshop, stopping for meals, clinking beer glasses.

bed. A day well spent is a life well lived.